About the only plays I ever saw, until I went away from home, were “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and “Ten Nights in a Bar Room,” played in our home town, and “East Lynne” in Syracuse. These were my only preparation for the appreciation and understanding of Booth’s “Hamlet,” which I saw my first year in Boston. A mere child when “Uncle Tom” came to town, and too moved to do anything but cry openly, I was unmercifully tormented the next day at school by the older girls who, having witnessed my humiliation of the night before, jeered at and mimicked me. Curiously enough, many years later, while visiting in Worcester, Massachusetts, I encountered the star of this performance at close quarters: I was taken ill while there, and the landlady of my hostess was the “Topsy” of my early remembrance. When she learned that I had seen her as “Topsy,” she doubled her offices in my behalf: there was a distinct improvement in my toast and gruel, although her housekeeping was almost as “shifless” as “Aunt Ophelia” had complained of years before. My first experience with remorse came when I was quite a little girl, on learning of the death of a schoolmate: One of the older girls, on seeing me weeping bitterly, looking at me coldly said, “Humph! _you_ needn’t cry--you used to quarrel with her--you know you did.” As though I didn’t know it only too well! For years that girl’s twitting me of those irrevocable quarrels seemed the most unfeeling thing imaginable. It was perhaps when I was sixteen that another schoolmate, going into a rapid decline, died of “consumption.” During that summer I went almost daily to brush her hair; she said I did not tangle it as others did. It was painful to see her wasting daily: that ominous cough, that sickly odour, and her pathetic hopefulness as her condition became more hopeless! But I had a strong sense of duty then. It was about the time, I suppose, that youthful altruism developed. Sometimes I would be so tired from work at home that I could hardly drag myself up the hill, and I dreaded the depressing environment. When she died they sent for me to dress her hair. She had requested it. That seemed more than I could do. (I have never been able to conquer my repugnance to touching a dead body.) But there was no way out of it. After the task was done, with which there was no one to help me except her brother, who was no help at all, I stayed and got supper for the invalid parents, and did other little things round the house, waiting for someone to come in who would stay the night. But no one came. I could not leave those helpless parents alone, so sent word home that I was going to stay, at the same time sending for a schoolmate to come and bear me company.