"If I had to describe her acting in those days, I should say its chief characteristic was a vivacious sauciness. Her voice already had some of the rich sympathetic quality which has since been one of her most distinctive charms. Although only in the first flush of a joyous girlhood, she was yet familiar enough with the stage to be absolutely at home on it, and in such complete touch with her audiences that she could afford to discard the serious spirit altogether, even when the situation demanded a less frivolous mood. That she made these little subordinate parts in the burlesques not only dominate the stage at the time, but also caused them to live in the memory all these years, is evidence enough of the compelling force and infection of her irrepressible mirthfulness. At rehearsals, even more than when acting, she was brimful of merriment, taking nothing gravely;--a gay, mercurial child, flitting about hither and thither with ever the same exuberant _insouciance_, the same defiant spirit of laughter, as if life and all its possibilities of tangle and tragedy had only a holiday meeting for her. As I look back on those bright and too brief 'salad' days, it seems to me that Ellen Terry might have been regarded as the epitome of that 'golden age' in which people 'fleeted the time carelessly.' "Mrs. Terry always accompanied her daughters to and from the theatre every night, and watched them from the wings during the whole time they were on the stage. They lodged during the season in Queen Square, then the recognised quarter for theatrical folks. The theatre itself was situated in King Street; I believe it still exists, but its glory, like that of Ichabod, has long since departed. A theatre in Park Row has superseded the famous old house where so many great actors and actresses were trained; and the whole neighbourhood round that building, once throbbing with artistic interest, has become sordid and neglected, and redolent of ship chandlery. But in the old times, outside the little narrow stage-door, crowds of dazzled Lotharios and stage-struck worshippers used to throng to see the 'Terrys' go home after the performance. Mrs. Terry played her part of duenna with uncommon vigilance, and it was little more than a snap-shot vision of three hurrying and well-wrapped up figures that rewarded the admirers for their patience.