Proud, reserved, John Kemble paid, years after, the best tribute to his memory, when, on hearing of his death, he wrote to his brother from Madrid, on 31st December 1802: “How sincerely I always loved my father and respected his sound understanding, you know too well for it to be necessary that I should even mention what I feel this moment, on opening your letter. God Almighty receive him into His everlasting happiness, and teach me to be resigned and resolute, to deserve to follow him when my appointed hour is come. My poor mother, though I know she will exert becoming firmness of mind in this, and every passage of her life, cannot but feel a melancholy void in losing the companion of her youth, the associate of her advancing years, and the father of her children. I regret from the very bottom of my heart that I cannot, with the most dutiful affection, assure her, at her feet, that what a grateful son can offer and do shall never be wanting from me to promote her content and ease and happiness. How, in vain, have I delighted myself in thousands of inconvenient occurrences on this journey, with the thought of contemplating my father’s cautious incredulity while I related them to him! Millions of things, uninteresting maybe to anybody else, I had treasured up for his surprise and scrutiny! It is God’s pleasure that he is gone from us. The resignation I had long observed in him to the will of Heaven, and his habitual piety, are no small consolation to me; yet I cannot help feeling a dejected swelling at my heart, that keeps me in a flood of tears for him, in spite of all I can do to stop them.” CHAPTER II. MARRIAGE. As Sarah Kemble passed from childhood to early womanhood, she continued to act the round of all the company’s plays, taking more important parts as she grew older. The very atmosphere she breathed was dramatic. To walk the stage was a second nature to her. She was not, however, at the same time shut out from common-place every-day matters. She helped her mother in the household work, and went from a rehearsal to the making of a pudding or the darning of a pair of stockings. There is little doubt that this free mixing in the simple family life of her home gave a healthy balance to her mind. Like her mother, she always kept her domestic life intact in the midst of her professional occupations, and ever remained simple and womanly. Her fine friends in later days would tell how they had found her ironing a frock for one of her children, or studying a new part while she rocked the cradle of the last baby. At the age of sixteen, Sarah’s beauty had attracted the attention of her audiences. One or two squires of the county places they visited offered her their homage; but before she was seventeen her affections were already engaged by a member of the troupe, an ex-apprentice from Birmingham.