“Ah, because he was so generous. I remember an instance; when he heard the Duchess of Manchester (afterwards Duchess of Devonshire) had taken two stalls, he at once sent off to offer her a private box. She accepted, and then he ordered a two-guinea bouquet to be placed therein, and invited her to supper. Again she accepted. He at once asked a party to meet her; that cost him over twenty-six pounds. He told me so, and he returned the Duchess her guinea. “Now do you call that business? Would a dressmaker give material gratis and entertain a customer to supper? We have never given free seats. Why should one? If the house does not fill, change the piece, but don’t pretend it’s a success by paper. Yes—I’m retiring; the public doesn’t want an actress to-day. It wants a pretty girl. If I was beginning now, instead of ending, I should be a failure. I was never really pretty. “Men and women who have never studied acting as an art are wanted now, young, pretty, well built. But as to acting!—the old school of acting is a thing of the past, my dear.” From Stageland to Shakespeare-land is a natural transit. Besides, there is no space left in this book to describe afresh the many valued and gifted theatrical friends to whom I devoted an entire volume in 1904, for which a second edition was called two months after publication. This book was _Behind the Footlights_, and it occurred to me to write in it that “Mrs. Kendal was the most loved and most hated woman on the stage.” These words might apply almost to Marie Corelli in literature. Who could help loving her who saw her as I did on October 6th, 1909, at the opening of Harvard House in Stratford-on-Avon? It was a wonderful day. A private train with bowls of flowers on every table, and smilax hanging in long tendrils from the roof (all this being the offering of the Railway Company), took us to Stratford at sixty-eight miles an hour. Our engine was also gaily decked with flags and flowers and had “HARVARD” painted across its front in big letters. The sun shone brilliantly on that early autumn day, bestowing, as it were, his blessing on this scholarly alliance of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes. A gracious little lady bade us welcome; short and “comely,” with fluffy brown hair above a round face. As a girl our hostess must have been a pretty little blonde English type—she owns the sweetest voice imaginable, a voice to love, to coo a child to sleep, the most gracious manners, and a delightful smile.