Comedy, Farce, Melodrama. My elder sisters quitted the stage
before they had much time to distinguish themselves. They were each
in turn, on their marriage, honoured with a paragraph in the
principal dramatic papers, but no one said the stage had sustained an
irreparable loss, or that the profession was robbed of one of its
brightest ornaments.

I was following very much in my sisters' footsteps. The critics
always spoke well of me. I never got a slating in my life, but then
before the criticism was in print I could almost have repeated word
for word the phrases that would be used.

"Miss Gascoigne was painstaking and intelligent as usual."

"The part was safe in the hands of that promising young actress,
Sybil Gascoigne."

With opinions such as these I was well content. My salary was
regularly paid, I could always reckon on a good engagement, and even
if my profession failed me there was Jack to fall back upon, and Jack
was substantial enough to fall back upon with no risk of hurting
oneself. He was six feet two, with broad, square shoulders, and
arms--well, when Jack's arms were round you you felt as if you did
not want anything else in the world. At least, that is how I felt.
Jack ought to have been in the Life Guards, and he would have been
only a wealthy uncle offered to do something for him, and of course
such an offer was not to be refused, and the "something" turned out
to be a clerkship in the uncle's business "with a view to a
partnership" as the advertisements say. Now the business was not a
pretty or a romantic one--it had something to do with leather--but it
was extremely profitable, and as I looked forward to one day sharing
all Jack's worldly goods I did not grumble at the leather. Not that
Jack had ever yet said a word to me which I could construe into a
downright offer. He had looked, certainly, but then with eyes like
his there is no knowing what they may imply. They were dark blue
eyes, and his hair was bright brown, with a touch of yellow in it,
and his moustache was tawny, and his skin was sunburnt to a healthy
red. We had been introduced in quite the orthodox way. We had not
fallen in love across the footlights. He seldom came to see me act,
but sometimes he would drop in to supper, perhaps on his way from a
dinner or to a dance, and if I could make him stay with us until it
was too late to go to that dance, what a happy girl I used to be!

My mother, with the circumspection that belongs to m