our hearts to one another. They seemed to realize that the severe, though well-meant, discipline with which they had brought up their children had been a mistake, and, as most of us do, on becoming conscious of our errors, rushed to the other extreme, allowing me to rule, a monarch supreme. They were charmingly old-fashioned people. Though they had left their home at Dusseldorf, when first married, and had spent the best part of their lives in America, their strong German accent never left them. Knowing their violent prejudice against the theatre, we decided not to reveal to them the object of our visit. My ambitions and hopes were likewise kept from Pater Anton. It was painful to hold back from them what was so engrossing to us, but we did so, fearing a possible estrangement. Being tempted on one occasion to confess all, I began by mentioning the name of Edwin Booth. They had heard it, or seen it on some street poster, but-" These actors with their dreadful painted faces, their lives of unwholesome publicity and excitement, and the vanity it all leads to, why should you speak of them?" I discreetly dropped the subject, feeling it would be kinder to leave them in ignorance of my plans.

The first interview with Mr. Vandenhoff was most disheartening. Though already advanced in years, he was full of fire and vigour. The expression of his face was stern and far from encouraging; and his manner on that day was annoying in its extreme brusqueness. He insisted upon my reading from a book. This was a blow; a book is such a hindrance when you know the words thoroughly. I began the first scene from "Richard the Third:"

"Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York,
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried!

"Stop!" he thundered; "you would split the ears of the groundlings with a voice like that!" This reproof, though he nearly split our ears in uttering it, was well merited, for I had not yet learned that one cannot touch the heart by piercing the ear. But it seemed then a cruelly unjust rebuke. His constant interruptions embarrassed and put me at my worst. Tyro-like, I chafed and champed under the curb, and my relief knew no bounds when the ten lessons, of an hour each, were over. The experience, however, had tamed, clipped, and done me general