The opening scene is dramatic. An old servant incautiously narrates to the new private secretary the story of his master’s trial and acquittal. In the midst of it they are interrupted by a voice calling from behind the scenes, “Adam Winterton, Adam Winterton, come hither to me!” With what telling effect the great actor pronounced these his first words in the drama may be guessed by those who remember Edwin Booth. The sadness in that wonderful voice struck the key-note of the tragedy. The end of the play savors of melodrama. On the discovery of his guilt, Sir Edward Mortimer falls upon the stage and dies to slow music, as his lady-love rushes in and supports his head. I fancy the play would not be tolerated, except by a Bowery audience, in these days, but with Booth in the principal rôle it was a favorite in the middle of the nineteenth century. Mary Devlin became engaged to be married to him soon afterward, and left the stage. This was a real loss to theater-goers, for the actresses who succeeded her in the principal rôles were by no means so satisfactory. It outraged our youthful ideals of fitness to have Mrs. E. L. Davenport take such parts as Katharine in the “Taming of the Shrew,” or Ophelia. She was middle-aged, thin and not beautiful. Hence, no matter how good her acting, she did not please critical school-girls. Losing Mrs. Booth from the stage brought us compensation, however, since we soon had the pleasure of seeing both “the great B and the little B,” as my mother playfully called them, in private life. It should here be said that the latter had earned the lasting gratitude of the great actor by her generous tribute of praise, bestowed at a moment when he was hurt and discouraged by harsh criticism. Her poem, “Hamlet at the Boston,” published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, was a word spoken in season. Mary Booth was an exquisite little woman, slender, graceful, with a charm of manner more winning than that of beauty alone. She and my mother soon became well acquainted, their pleasant friendship being cut short by her untimely death, at the age of twenty-five.