"Then let the young woman play, by all means," Phelps said. What a night it was! At the end of the play they wanted her on again, but Phelps was obdurate. A party of men came round, and threatened to throw Phelps into the Humber! Phelps remained firm. "He was kindness itself through it all," Mrs. Kendal assured me, "and though I did not go on again, he proved his thoughtfulness a little later on by sending for me to play _Lady Teazle_. I played the leading parts during the three nights Phelps remained in Hull in 'The Man of the World,' 'Richelieu,' and 'Macbeth.' On July 29th, 1865, I made my _début_ in London, at the Haymarket, as _Ophelia_ to the _Hamlet_ of Walter Montgomery. Poor Montgomery! He was what you would call a 'lady-killer'--very conceited, but, withal, very kind. He once wrote a letter to my father, and added a postscript, saying: 'Keep this letter. Should poverty fall upon you or yours, your great-grand-children may be able to sell it for a good sum of money!' I was only with him six weeks." The only play of her brother's in which Mrs. Kendal has appeared was "Dreams," when the Gaiety first opened. At this time the managers always tried to induce Mrs. Kendal to appear in a riding habit--a costume in which she looked strikingly handsome. "Alfred Wigan played in 'Dreams,'" continued Mrs. Kendal. "His wife was one of the kindest women I ever met. She gave me a gold bracelet for a very curious little service I used to render her husband every night. He had to sing a song in 'Dreams,' and one or two of the high notes were beyond his reach. I used to take these notes for him, and the audience never guessed the truth." "And have you not played _Desdemona_?" I asked. "Oh! yes--and to a real black man, and so he did not have to put his head up the chimney to make himself up for the part! His name was Ira Aldridge, and scandal said he was the dresser of some great actor whom he used to imitate. But he had very ingenious ideas as to the character of _Othello_. He thought him a brute, and played him as such. His great notion was to get the fairest woman possible for _Desdemona_--and I was selected, for at that time my hair was quite golden. "In one part of the play he would cry out, 'Give me thy hand, Desdemona!' and certainly the effect of my hand in his huge grasp was impressive. Then in the last act he would pull me from the couch by the hair of my head. Oh! there was something in his realism, I can tell you!" Miss Robertson made a great sensation when she appeared as _Blanche Dumont_, in Dr. Westland Marston's "Hero of Romance," when it was performed for the first time at the Haymarket Theatre, on March 14th, 1868. Seventeen months after this, on August 7th, 1869, she was Madge Robertson no longer. On that day she was married to Mr. William Hunter Grimston, whose stage name is Kendal. It is a charming little story.