“You don’t mean to tell me you want to get another engagement at once, Miss O’Finn? Why, I should have thought you would have wanted to stay and enjoy your daughter’s success. It was wonderful. What notices, eh? By Jove, it’s refreshing nowadays to hear of anybody clicking like that.” “Oh, no, I’ve rested quite long enough,” Nancy said. “I want to be off on tour again as soon as possible.” The agent looked at his book. “Well, I’m awfully sorry, Miss O’Finn, but I don’t believe there’s anything just at the moment that would suit you.” He paused. “Unless—but, no, of course, you don’t want to play that line of parts yet.” “What line?” “Why, Charles Hamilton is losing Miss Wolsey who has been playing Mrs. Malaprop, Mrs. Hardcastle, etc., with him for the last fifteen years.” “You mean the old women?” Nancy asked. “Quite—er—quite.” “I would like to be with Charles Hamilton,” she said pensively. “And at forty it’s time to strike out in a new line of parts.” “Well, he’s playing at Croydon this week. If you would consider these parts, why don’t you go and see him? It’s a pleasant company to be in. Forty-two weeks, year in year out, and of course he occasionally has a season in London. Nothing but Shakespeare and Old Comedy.” Nancy did not hesitate. Now that her daughter was safely launched it was time for her to be settling down. She went back to her rooms and wrote a long letter to Mother Catherine about Letizia’s triumph. Then she wrote to Charles Hamilton for an interview. She went to Croydon, interviewed him, and a fortnight later she was playing with him at Sheffield—Mrs. Candour in _The School for Scandal_ on Monday, the Nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_ on Tuesday, Mrs. Malaprop in _The Rivals_ on Wednesday, Mistress Quickly in _The Merry Wives_ on Thursday, nothing on Friday when _Twelfth Night_ was performed, but on Saturday Mrs. Hardcastle in _She Stoops to Conquer_ at the matinée and at night once more the Nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_. Nancy no longer worried over her increasing tendency to increasing portliness, and she never regretted joining Charles Hamilton’s company, which now that Mrs. Hunter-Hart had retired represented the last stronghold of the legitimate drama in Great Britain. So long as Charles Hamilton went out on tour she determined to tour with him. The habit of saving so much out of her salary every week was not given up because Letizia was secure; indeed she saved more each week, because now that she had taken to dowagers she could afford to ignore the changes of fashion which had made dressing a problem so long as she was competing for parts with younger women. And then Letizia Fuller after enchanting London for a year abandoned the stage for ever in order to marry the young Earl of Darlington. The following letter to her mother explained her reasons: