Ada Rehan, born at Limerick, Ireland, on April 22, 1860, was brought to America when five years old, and at that time she lived and went to school in Brooklyn. No one of her progenitors was ever upon the stage, nor does it appear that she was predisposed to that vocation by early reading or training. Her elder sisters had adopted that pursuit, and perhaps she was impelled toward it by the force of example and domestic association, readily affecting her innate latent faculty for the dramatic art. Her first appearance on the stage was made at Newark, New Jersey, in 1873, in a play entitled _Across the Continent_, in which she acted a small part, named Clara, for one night only, to fill the place of a performer who had been suddenly disabled by illness. Her readiness and her positive talent were clearly revealed in that effort, and it was thereupon determined in a family council that she should proceed; so she was soon regularly embarked upon the life of an actress. Her first appearance on the New York stage was made a little later, in 1873, at Wood's museum (it became Daly's theatre in 1879), when she played a small part in a piece called _Thorough-bred_. During the seasons of 1873-74-75 she was associated with the Arch Street theatre, Philadelphia,--that being her first regular professional engagement. (John Drew, with whom, professionally, Ada Rehan has been long associated, made his first appearance in the same season, at the same house.) She then went to Macaulay's theatre, Louisville, where she acted for one season. From Louisville she went to Albany, as a member of John W. Albaugh's company, and with that manager she remained two seasons, acting sometimes in Albany and sometimes in Baltimore. After that she was for a few months with Fanny Davenport. The earlier part of her career involved professional endeavours in company with the wandering stars, and she acted in a variety of plays with Edwin Booth, Adelaide Neilson, John McCullough, Mrs. Bowers, Lawrence Barrett, John Brougham, Edwin Adams, Mrs. Lander, and John T. Raymond. From the first she was devotedly fond of Shakespeare, and all the Shakespearian characters allotted to her were studied and acted by her with eager interest and sympathy. While thus employed in the provincial stock she enacted Ophelia, Cordelia, Desdemona, Celia, Olivia, and Lady Anne, and in each of those parts she was conspicuously good. The attention of Augustin Daly was first attracted to her in December 1877, when she was acting at Albaugh's theatre in Albany, the play being _Katharine and Petruchio_ (Garrick's version of the _Taming of the Shrew_), and Ada Rehan appearing as Bianca; and subsequently Daly again observed her as an actress of auspicious distinction and marked promise at the Grand Opera House, New York, in April 1879. Fanny Davenport was then acting in that theatre in Daly's strong American play of _Pique_--one of the few dramas