When the curtain fell upon the death-scene I was exhausted; but another and counteracting experience awaited me, for the after-piece was “Robert Macaire,” and now, heartily as I had wept before, I became convulsed with laughter as I saw the deft pickpocket (impersonated by Crisp, the comedian), courtly as a king, bowing in the dance, while removing from the unsuspecting ladies and gentlemen about him their brooches and jewels! My absorption in the performance was so great that I scarce heard the admonitions of my father and uncle, who begged me, in whispers, to control myself. Nor did I realise there was another person in the house but the performers on the stage and myself. Years afterward, while travelling with my husband, he recognised in a fellow traveller a former friend from southern Alabama, a Mr. Montague, and brought him to me to present him. To my chagrin, he had scarcely taken my hand when he burst into immoderate and inexplicable laughter. “Never,” said he to Mr. Clay, “shall I forget the time when I first saw your wife! We went to see Tree; but, sir, not half the house knew what was going on on the stage for watching the little girl in the auditorium! Never till then had I imagined the full power of the drama! Her delight, her tears and laughter, I am sure, were remembered by the Mobilians long after the ‘stars’ acting was forgotten.” That visit to Mobile was my first flight into the beautiful world that lay beyond the horizon of my school life. In the enjoyments devised for me by my father in those few charmed days, I saw, if not clearly, at least prophetically, what of beauty and joy life might hold for me. Upon our arrival in the lovely little Bay city, my father, learning of a ball for which preparations were on foot, determined I should attend it. Guided perhaps in his choice of colour by the tints of health that lay in his little daughter’s cheeks, he selected for me a gown of peach-blossom silk, which all my life I have remembered as the most beautiful of dresses, and one which transformed me, heretofore confined to brown holland gowns by my prudent aunt, Mrs. Battle, as truly as Cinderella was changed into a princess. Upon the evening of that never-to-be-forgotten Boat Club Ball, blushing and happy, eager, with delightful anticipations, yet timorous, too, for my guardians, the Battles, had disapproved of dancing and had rigorously excluded this and other worldly pleasures from their ward’s accomplishments, I was conducted by my father to the ball. In my heart lay the fear that I would be, after all, a mere looker-on, or appear awkward if I should venture to dance as did the others; but neither of these misgivings proved to have been well founded.