Her very high qualities as a wife and mother, her decorum of conduct, so different to others of her profession, seemed to add a zest to the acrimony with which they assaulted her. The first part in which she appeared on the London boards after her return from Dublin was Mrs. Beverley in the _Gamester_ to her brother’s Stukeley. Hardly had the curtain been raised, before a storm of hooting and hissing broke forth, and she whom they had late proclaimed a queen, who had seen the town enslaved at her feet, now stood “the object of public scorn.” She did the best thing she could by remaining with perfect composure facing them, but in those few dreadful moments she discounted all the adulation and success she had enjoyed. How intense the suffering was we can see by the account written years after. “I had left London,” she tells us, “the object of universal approbation, but, on my return, only a few weeks afterwards, I was received, on my first night’s appearance, with universal opprobrium, accused of hardness of heart, and total insensibility to everything and everybody except my own interest. Unhappily, contrary winds had for some days precluded the possibility of receiving from Dublin such letters as would have refuted those atrocious calumnies, and saved me from the horrors of this dreadful night, when I was received with hissing and hooting. Amidst this afflicting clamour I made several attempts to be heard, when at length a gentleman stood forth in the middle of the front of the pit, impelled by benevolent and gentlemanly feeling, who, as I advanced to make my last attempt at being heard, accosted me with these words: ‘For Heaven’s sake, Madam, do not degrade yourself by an apology, for there is nothing necessary to be said!’ I shall always look back with gratitude to this gallant man’s solitary advocacy of my cause; like Abdiel, ‘faithful found; among the faithless, faithful only he.’ His admonition was followed by reiterated clamour, when my dear brother appeared, and carried me away from this scene of insult. “The instant I quitted it I fainted in his arms; and, on my recovery, I was thankful that my persecutors had not had the gratification of beholding this weakness. After I was tolerably restored to myself, I was induced, by the persuasions of my husband, my brother, and Mr. Sheridan, to present myself again before that audience by whom I had been so savagely treated, and before whom, but in consideration of my children, I would have never appeared again. The play was _The Gamester_, which commences with a scene between Beverley and Charlotte. “Great and pleasant was my astonishment to find myself, on the second rising of the curtain, received with a silence so profound that I was absolutely awe-struck, and never yet have I been able to account for this surprising contrast; for I really think that the falling of a pin might have been then heard upon the stage.”