im to
carry, 'there is a great deal that's fine in it. The original sketch, as
the Italian author left it, was good, and Wallace has enormously improved
upon it. Only--'

'Isn't it most dramatic?' she exclaimed, interrupting him; 'there are so
many strong situations in it, and though one might think the subject a
little unpleasant if one only heard it described, yet there is nothing in
the treatment but what is noble and tragic. I have very seldom felt so
stirred by anything. I find myself planning the scenes, thinking over
them this way and that incessantly.'

'It is very good and friendly of you,' said Kendal warmly, 'to wish me to
give you advice about it. Do you really want me to speak my full mind?'

'Of course I do,' she said eagerly; 'of course I do. I think there are
one or two points in it that might be changed. I shall press Mr. Wallace
to make a few alterations. I wonder what were the changes that occurred
to you?'

'I wasn't thinking of changes,' said Kendal, not venturing to look at her
as she walked beside him, her white dress trailing over the moss-grown
path, and her large hat falling back from the brilliant flushed cheeks
and queenly throat. 'I was thinking of the play itself, of how the part
would really suit you.'

'Oh, I have no doubts at all about that,' she said, but with a quick look
at him; 'I always feel at once when a part will suit me, and I have
fallen in love with this one. It is tragic and passionate, like the
_White Lady_, but it is quite a different phase of passion. I am tired of
scolding and declaiming. _Elvira_ will give me an opportunity of showing
what I can do with something soft and pathetic. I have had such
difficulties in deciding upon a play to begin my October season with,
and now this seems to me exactly what I want. People prefer me always in
something poetical and romantic, and this is new, and the mounting of it
might be quite original.'

'And yet I doubt,' said Kendal; 'I think the part of Elvira wants
variety, and would it not be well for you to have more of a change?
Something with more relief in it, something which would give your lighter
vein, which comes in so well in the _White Lady_, more chance?'

She frowned a little and shook her head. 'My turn is not that way. I can
play a comedy part, of course--every actor ought to be able to--but I
don't feel at home in it, and it never gives me pleasure to act.'

'I don't mean a pure light-comedy part, naturally, bu