m that would follow you upstairs and
want to come into bed with you.

Another curious thing about these stage snow-storms is that the moon is
always shining brightly through the whole of them. And it shines only on
the heroine, and it follows her about just like the snow does.

Nobody fully understands what a wonderful work of nature the moon is
except people acquainted with the stage. Astronomy teaches you something
about the moon, but you learn a good deal more from a few visits to
a theater. You will find from the latter that the moon only shines on
heroes and heroines, with perhaps an occasional beam on the comic man:
it always goes out when it sees the villain coming.

It is surprising, too, how quickly the moon can go out on the stage.
At one moment it is riding in full radiance in the midst of a cloudless
sky, and the next instant it is gone! Just as though it had been turned
off at a meter. It makes you quite giddy at first until you get used to
it.

The stage heroine is inclined to thoughtfulness rather than gayety.

In her cheerful moments the stage heroine thinks she sees the spirit of
her mother, or the ghost of her father, or she dreams of her dead baby.

But this is only in her very merry moods. As a rule, she is too much
occupied with weeping to have time for frivolous reflections.

She has a great flow of language and a wonderful gift of metaphor and
simile--more forcible than elegant--and this might be rather trying in
a wife under ordinary circumstances. But as the hero is generally
sentenced to ten years' penal servitude on his wedding-morn, he escapes
for a period from a danger that might well appall a less fortunate
bridegroom.

Sometimes the stage heroine has a brother, and if so he is sure to be
mistaken for her lover. We never came across a brother and sister in
real life who ever gave the most suspicious person any grounds for
mistaking them for lovers; but the stage brother and sister are so
affectionate that the error is excusable.

And when the mistake does occur and the husband comes in suddenly and
finds them kissing and raves she doesn't turn round and say:

"Why, you silly cuckoo, it's only my brother."

That would be simple and sensible, and would not suit the stage heroine
at all. No; she does all in her power to make everybody believe it is
true, so that she can suffer in silence.

She does so love to suffer.

Marriage is undoubtedly a failure in the case of the stage he