"A stage was erected at the end of the room, covered with a carpet, ornamented with evergreens and lighted by candles in gilt branches. Two window curtains were drawn aside from the centre before it and the audience were seated on the benches of the schoolroom. The 'Search after Happiness,' by Mrs. More, 'The Milliner,' and 'The Dove,' by Madame Genlis were performed. In the first I acted Euphelia, one of the court ladies, and also sung a song intended in the play for one of the daughters of Urania, but as I had the best voice it was given to me. My dress was a pink and green striped silk, feathers and flowers decorated my head; and with bracelets on my arms and paste buckles on my shoes I thought I made a splendid appearance. The only time I ever rode in a sedan chair was on this occasion, when after being dressed at home, I was conveyed in one to Miss Ledyard's residence. Hackney coaches were then unknown in New York. In the second piece I acted the milliner and by some strange notion of Miss Ledyard's or my own was dressed in a gown, cap, handkerchief and apron of my mother's, with a pair of spectacles to look like an elderly woman--a proof how little we understood the character of a French milliner. When the curtain was drawn, many of the audience declared it must be Mrs. Morton herself on the stage. How my mother with her strict notions and prejudices against the theatre ever consented to such proceedings is still a surprise to me." All parents did not approve of those exhibitions. Major Dulany wrote with decision to his daughter that he lamented the boldness and over-assurance which accompanied any success in such performances, and which proceeded, he deemed, from callous feeling. These plays were merely a revival of an old fashion when English school children took part in miracle plays or mysteries. In the seventeenth century schoolmasters took great pride in writing exhibition plays for their pupils. Dreary enough these acts or interludes are. One forced all the characters to act "anomalies of all the chiefest parts of grammar"--oh! the poor lads that therein played their parts! CHAPTER V HORNBOOK AND PRIMER _To those who are in years but Babes I bow My Pen to teach them what the Letters be, And how they may improve their A. B. C. Nor let my pretty Children them despise. All needs must there begin, that would be wise, Nor let them fall under Discouragement, Who at their Hornbook stick, and time hath spent, Upon that A. B. C, while others do Into their Primer or their Psalter go._ --_A Book for Boys and Girls, or Country Rhimes for Children. John Bunyan, 1686._