is all very
interesting, but I feel as if I know her now. What then?"

Then the thing to do is to go serenely on telling, for example, how the
young thing in Harrietta Fuller's company invariably came up to her at
the first rehearsal and said tremulously: "Miss Fuller, I--you won't
mind--I just want to tell you how proud I am to be one of your company.
Playing with you. You've been my ideal ever since I was a little g--"
then, warned by a certain icy mask slipping slowly over the brightness
of Harrietta's features--"ever so long, but I never even hoped----"

These young things always learned an amazing lot from watching the deft,
sure strokes of Harrietta's craftsmanship. She was kind to them, too.
Encouraged them. Never hogged a scene that belonged to them. Never cut
their lines. Never patronized them. They usually played ingenue parts,
and their big line was that uttered on coming into a room looking for
Harrietta. It was: "Ah, _there_ you are!"

How can you really know Harrietta unless you realize the deference with
which she was treated in her own little sphere? If the world at large
did not acclaim her, there was no lack of appreciation on the part of
her fellow workers. They knew artistry when they saw it. Though she had
never attained stardom, she still had the distinction that usually comes
only to a star back stage. Unless she actually was playing in support of
a first-magnitude star, her dressing room was marked "A." Other members
of the company did not drop into her dressing room except by invitation.
That room was neat to the point of primness. A square of white coarse
sheeting was spread on the floor, under the chair before her dressing
table, to gather up dust and powder. It was regularly shaken or changed.
There were always flowers--often a single fine rose in a slender vase.
On her dressing table, in a corner, you were likely to find three or
four volumes--perhaps The Amenities of Book-Collecting; something or
other of Max Beerbohm's; a book of verse (not Amy Lowell's).

These were not props designed to impress the dramatic critic who might
drop in for one of those personal little theatrical calls to be used in
next Sunday's "Chats in the Wings." They were there because Harrietta
liked them and read them between acts. She had a pretty wit of her own.
The critics liked to talk with her. Even George Jean Hathem, whose
favourite pastime was to mangle the American stage with his pen and hold
its bleeding