Many of my most effective dresses have been what I may call "freaks." The splendid dress that I wore in the Trial Scene in "Henry VIII." is one example of what I mean. Mr. Seymour Lucas designed it, and there was great difficulty in finding a material rich enough and somber enough at the same time. No one was so clever on such quests as Mrs. Comyns Carr. She was never to be misled by the appearance of the stuff in the hand, nor impressed by its price by the yard, if she did not think it would look right on the stage. As Katherine she wanted me to wear steely silver and bronzy gold, but all the brocades had such insignificant designs. If they had a silver design on them it looked under the lights like a scratch in white cotton! At last Mrs. Carr found a black satin which on the right side was timorously and feebly patterned with a meandering rose and thistle. On the wrong side of it was a sheet of silver--just the _right_ steely silver because it was the _wrong_ side! Mrs. Carr then started on another quest for gold that should be as right as that silver. She found it at last in some gold-lace antimacassars at Whiteley's! From these base materials she and Mrs. Nettleship constructed a magnificent queenly dress. Its only fault was that it was _heavy_. But the weight that I can carry on the stage has often amazed me. I remember that for "King Arthur" Mrs. Nettleship made me a splendid cloak embroidered all over with a pattern in jewels. At the dress-rehearsal when I made my entrance the cloak swept magnificently and I daresay looked fine, but I knew at once that I should never be able to act in it. I called out to Mrs. Nettleship and Alice Carr, who were in the stalls, and implored them to lighten it of some of the jewels. "Oh, do keep it as it is," they answered, "it looks splendid." "I can't breathe in it, much less act in it. Please send some one up to cut off a few stones." I went on with my part, and then, during a wait, two of Mrs. Nettleship's assistants came on to the stage and snipped off a jewel here and there. When they had filled a basket, I began to feel better! But when they tried to lift that basket, their united efforts could not move it! On one occasion I wore a dress made in eight hours! During the first week of the run of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" at His Majesty's, there was a fire in my dressing-room--an odd fire which was never accounted for. In the morning they found the dress that I had worn as Mrs. Page burnt to a cinder. A messenger from His Majesty's went to tell my daughter, who had made the ill-fated dress: "Miss Terry will, I suppose, have to wear one of our dresses to-night. Perhaps you could make her a new one by the end of the week." "Oh, that will be all right," said Edy, bluffing, "I'll make her a dress by to-night." She has since told me that she did not really think she _could_ make it in time!