She spoke of her mother, her early hardships, her final break. “All those years of struggle and privation had to be paid for; her capital of health and strength were exhausted, utterly.” Her face, in the fading light, reflected from the river, took on an added unreality. “This is my favorite part of the day,” she said, and it came to me that her remark, and the manner of it, removed her a step farther from her surroundings: that she was, in fact, of Arcady. IV WORKING WITH LILLIAN “Uncle Vanya” was to reopen in New York for two weeks at the Booth Theatre, then it was going on the road—to Boston, to Chicago, to Pittsburgh, to Philadelphia. There would be rehearsals, but we should have a good deal of time to work, she said, and would I like to come again tomorrow? It would be nearly four weeks until she left for Boston. We could make a good start. We worked the next day, and the next, and were to have worked on Sunday, but she was ill when I arrived, and I saw her only briefly, her face flushed with fever, a light attack of “grippe.” On that day, I first met that rare woman, her mother, sweet and patient, her face like a miniature, her hands the daintiest in the world. And then, a few days later, that princess of comediennes, light-hearted Dorothy, “a bright flag flying in the breeze,” to whom all the days are good days, all music good music, to whom all clouds are lined with silver and spanned with rainbows. The likeness between the sisters, whatever it had been earlier, was hardly more now than a family suggestion that flashed faintly at long intervals. They were, in fact, about as different as it is possible for sisters to be. Daily we rebuilt the sequence of the years—for Lillian a new occupation which she entered into with zest. As I have told earlier her “den” had a wide window that overlooked the East River—a cozy room, with small low chairs which she loved—a proper setting for her. We almost always worked there. It is associated with these pages. Her memory of earlier happenings was vague. We relied a good deal upon Dorothy, always in childhood with her mother, who had kept her memories refreshed. To Lillian, those days of wandering had been one like another—little to look forward to, less to look back upon—mere links in a succession of one-night stands. Memory and anticipation do not prosper on that nourishment.