“It is very difficult for me to speak, to thank you. Your kind and generous approval to-night means so very, very much to Mrs. Carter and all the splendid company that has worked so loyally for the success of this play. It means more to me than any words of mine can say. This production to-night is the culmination of twenty-five years of work; of hard, hard work and often bitter disappointment. I have been a supernumerary, a call boy, an actor, a stage manager for others, an adapter of plays: now I am encouraged to hope I have proved myself a dramatist.... It is many long years since I first dreamed of an independent success in New York--a success I might keep in my own hands. If this is at last the turning of the tide that leads on to fortune, I shall never forget my debt to you: I shall strive, as long as I live, to give you, to give the people of this great and wonderful city, not only the best there is in me but the very best the Theatre can give. Thank you from my heart! I thank you--I thank you!” It was, indeed, “the turning of the tide.” “The Heart of Maryland” was played at the Herald Square Theatre for 229 consecutive performances, and it occupied a large part of Belasco’s time and attention during the period of about two years which followed its New York production. The season ended at the Herald Square on May 16, 1896. From about that date until June 23 Mrs. Carter and Belasco underwent the painful ordeal incident to trial of his lawsuit against N. K. Fairbank,--which, as already recorded, terminated on the latter date with a verdict in favor of the manager. In the course of the next six weeks Belasco made a revision of Clay M. Greene’s “Under the Polar Star,” which was produced by William A. Brady, August 20, at the New York Academy of Music. On October 5, at the Broad Street, Philadelphia, the first tour of “The Heart of Maryland” was begun, under the personal direction of its author. That tour was everywhere amply successful and it [Illustration: Photograph by Sarony. Belasco’s Collection. MRS. LESLIE CARTER AS _MARYLAND CALVERT_, IN “THE HEART OF MARYLAND”.] lasted without special incident,--except that toward its close Belasco purchased (April, 1897) the interest of Mr. Max Bleiman in the production,--until the following May 1. The season was ended on that date at the Grand Opera House, New York, and Belasco soon afterward visited San Francisco. The third season of “The Heart of Maryland” began at the scene of so much of his early experience, the Baldwin Theatre, in that city, August 17, and continued in unabated prosperity for about seven months. “THE FIRST BORN.”--A SUCCESS AND A FAILURE.