Our activities could not long escape the criticism of the grown-up people; but rather to our surprise, for candles were quite illicit playthings, they contented themselves with a general caution as to the perils of fire, and a particular injunction concerning the dropping of candle-grease on the tablecloth. So we played with our theatre till Christmas, by which time the members of our stock company were more than a little battered and weary at the knees. Then there came a surprise. Included in the number of our presents were a little theatre with a real curtain that went up and down, and materials for three complete productions. This time we had not only the characters, but the books of words and scenery as well, and we prepared to do things on an unprecedented scale. As a result, after extraordinary labour in the scenic and costume departments, we were able to produce, on three successive nights, “Paul Clifford,” “The Corsican Brothers,” and “The Miller and his Men.” The repertory theatre was fairly under way. First-nights were really thrilling in those days. The dignified deportment of our actors, as yet unspoiled by success, roused the audience to enthusiasm, and we did not weary of admiring simple stage effects that would have moved us to scornful laughter in after-days. Yet even in these early productions there lurked the seeds of artistic disruption. Already our appreciation of the gallant bearing of Paul Clifford passed all reasonable bounds, and threatened to develop into that hero-worship that proves fatal to the talents of any actor. Already we had an unwholesome craving for excessive realism in the staging of plays, and we made use of the ingenuity of our elders to drive Grindoff’s sinister windmill in the first act of “The Miller and his Men.” It might be said that our theatre, _quâ_ repertory theatre, was doomed from the start.