serious-minded in her own childish way even in those days, and once she realized that you were treating her seriously there was nothing that child would not try to do.”[198] One of “Little Maudie’s” successes at this time was in _Chums_, which Mr. Belasco had adapted from an old English play _The Mariner’s Compass_. Mr. Herne, who played in it at the time, later made and acted in another version, _The Hearts of Oak_. The character Crystal (for whom Mr. Heme undoubtedly named his daughter) occurs in both versions. “From the time Maude Adams created the rôle,” says Mr. Belasco, “it became one of the most vital parts of the play. _Chums_, in short, scored an immense success, and ‘Little Maudie’ for time being was the heroine of the town.” Mrs. Adams had seen to it that Maude received more of the ordinary schooling than sometimes falls to the lot of a child actress. When she was thirteen, however, her schooling was called complete. The girl had had her taste of success and during her term at school had dreamed of returning to the stage. She told her mother: “It’s no use my studying any more, mother.... I want to go on the stage again, so that I may be with you.” But when the attempt was made it proved to be not the easiest thing in the world. As a child actress of less than ten, she had found parts awaiting her. As a young girl in her middle teens, parts were much harder to find. She traveled about with her mother, getting an occasional small part, such as one of the old women in _Harbor Lights_, or the Princess in _Monte Christo_. In the meantime, she studied hard, absorbing her mother’s instructions and learning many rôles. When Miss Adams was just under sixteen she and her mother crossed the country--in the caste of the melodrama, _The Paymaster_,--to try their fortunes in the Middle West and finally in New York. Although it is on record that she won “a great deal of praise for her simplicity and beauty,” one can see, in the account of her nightly “plunge into a tank of real water,”[199] a far cry to her later distinction as the interpreter of the subtleties of Barrie.