up, and I went right along to a jolly little flat near
Highbury Quadrant. As we entered the main room, I heard a high, thin
voice protesting--

But there were times, dear,
When you made me feel so bad!

And there, flitting about the room in dainty lace petticoat, and little
else, was young Beryl, superintending her aunt's feverish struggles with
paint and powder-jars, frocks, petties, silk stockings, socks, and
wraps, snatching these articles from a voluminous wardrobe and tossing
them, haphazard, into a monumental dressing-basket, already half-full
with two life-size teddy-bears.

She was a bright little maid, and, though we had not met before, we made
friends at once. She had a mass of black curls, eyes dancing with elfin
lights, a face permanently flushed, and limbs never in repose. She was,
even in sleep--as I have seen her since--wonderfully alive, with that
hectic energy that is born of spending oneself to the last ounce
unceasingly; in her case, the magnetic, self-consuming energy of talent
prematurely developed. Her voice had distinctive quality, unusual in
little girls of nine. When she talked, it was with perfect articulation
and a sense of the value and beauty of words. Her manners were prettily
wayward, but not precocious. She moved with the quiet self-possession
of one who has something to do and knows just how to do it, one who took
her little self seriously but not conceitedly.

On the stage she has been the delight of thousands. Her gay smile, her
delicate graces, and her calm, unfaltering stage manner have touched the
hearts of all sorts and conditions, from boxes to bar. Eight times a
week, six evenings and two matinees, she was booked to take the stage
from the rise of the curtain and leave it for scarcely more than two
minutes at a time until the fall. This was by no means her first show.
Before that she had been pantomime fairy, orphan child in melodrama,
waif in a music-hall sketch, millionaire's pet in a Society play, a
mischievous boy in a popular farce, dancer in a big ballet, and now the
lead in a famous fairy play, at a salary of ten pounds a week. No wonder
Dad and Mumdear, and even the elder girls, regarded her with a touch of
awe and worship. But feted as she is, she has never been spoilt; and she
remains, in spite of her effervescent life, a genuine child. The pet of
the crowd behind the scenes, the pet of the house in front, she is
accustomed, every night, to salvoes