The managers who had formerly avoided Mrs. Byron were by this time dead, bankrupt, or engaged in less hazardous pursuits. One of their successors had lately restored Shakespeare to popularity as signally as Cashel had restored the prize ring. He was anxious to produce the play of “King John,” being desirous of appearing as Faulconbridge, a part for which he was physically unfitted. Though he had no suspicion of his unfitness, he was awake to the fact that the favorite London actresses, though admirable in modern comedy, were not mistresses of what he called, after Sir Walter Scott, the “big bow wow” style required for the part of Lady Constance in Shakespeare’s history. He knew that he could find in the provinces many veteran players who knew every gesture and inflection of voice associated by tradition with the part; but he was afraid that they would remind Londoners of Richardson’s show, and get Faulconbridge laughed at. Then he thought of Adelaide Gisborne. For some hours after the idea came to him he was gnawed at by the fear that her performance would throw his into the shade. But his confidence in his own popularity helped his love of good acting to prevail; and he made the newly returned actress a tempting offer, instigating some journalist friends of his at the same time to lament over the decay of the grand school of acting, and to invent or republish anecdotes of Mrs. Siddons. This time Mrs. Byron said nothing about detesting the stage. She had really detested it once; but by the time she was rich enough to give up the theatre she had worn that feeling out, and had formed a habit of acting which was as irksome to shake off as any other habit. She also found a certain satisfaction in making money with ease and certainty, and she made so much that at last she began to trifle with plans of retirement, of playing in Paris, of taking a theatre in London, and other whims. The chief public glory of her youth had been a sudden triumph in London on the occasion of her first appearance on any stage; and she now felt a mind to repeat this and crown her career where it had begun. So she accepted the manager’s offer, and even went the length of reading the play of “King John” in order to ascertain what it was all about.