Amateur theatricals were a favourite amusement at the young parties—at first, when the kind father was the chief performer, in “a series of dancing card figures, exhibited on a sheet as shadows, he writing and reading the text;” afterwards, the performances were of more ambitious character, at Mr. Wyand’s school, when the boys were allowed to invite their sisters and friends, and “where the plays were written by the boys, and the women’s parts taken by boys, to our great delight, as they invariably tumbled over their skirts.” In one play, the king’s part is taken by John Blockley, son of the author of the then favourite song “Love Not,” in a play in which the chief characters are “King Edward” and the “Sultan of Turkey,” Edward being a “tall, thin, shy lad, who in the meekest possible way announced that while he lived no Turkish prince should wield Edward’s sceptre” (a folded sheet of exercise paper). “My brother Alfred contributed a large cloak, lined with red, which continued to be a famous piece of stage property. The swords, shields, etc., were made by my father.” The pupils who knew the school when Miss Buss was in full vigour will read with interest these early developments of the dramatic power which played such part in the _tableaux vivants_, plays, charades, or costume dances of that period. These entertainments, involving parties counted by hundreds where ordinary folk have units, were a great feature of school-life. They must have formed a delightful break in that excessive study so condemned by the world outside, which assuredly in no wise prevented the most hilarious enjoyment of these revels, shared by all, from the dignified head down to the most frolicsome of the “little ones.” And for all readers it is pleasant to have these glimpses of the happy home-life in which this loving nature had such free room for growth. So much is implied as we see the busy father making time for play with his children, as well as for “writing letters on grammar,” which the studious little daughter “used to find on the stairs;” or again, as we note the good mother, not less busy, kindly shutting her eyes to those surreptitious studies under the sofa, instead of calling on her only girl to take her part in amusing the younger children, of whom, in course of time, one sister and eight brothers made their appearance in the active household. Of these, however, only four brothers attained manhood. In later years the elder sister needed no bidding to stand by the mother to whom she was devoted, and whose comfort and stay she became in the long struggle with the many claims on a narrow income. In those days life was a struggle to even the most distinguished artists, and fame was by no means synonymous with fortune.