I tremble now when I think of those awful nights in Finland. Sleep had deserted me. I used to steal from my bed in the small hours, when I could toss about no more, and, throwing on a dressing-gown, slip out on to the balcony. How perfect it all was, that great high dome of sky so light that one could barely see a star, so warm that sun and moon fought for pre-eminence. No one who has not really seen them can know the glory of those Northern nights both in winter and in summer. In winter the glory of the darkness and the aurora borealis (Northern Lights), in summer the perfection of colour and light. I have seen them on four or five different occasions. Beautiful as is the South, the night of the Arctic is still more wondrous. It is so still, so calm, so vast. There on the balcony, listening to the grasshoppers and watching the reds and yellows of the midnight sun, I would dream waking dreams. Could I really write professionally? Could I earn sufficient to send my boys to school and keep a home, ought I to risk it, or should I decide, as so many friends wished, to part myself from all my old ties and treasures, and live in seclusion on my little income in a cottage or a suburb? It was a great fight. Six months of anxiety and two terrible shocks had weakened me and made me distrust myself. Yes, even now I shiver when I think of those nights. Nights of wakefulness after a hard working day. Napoleon, Wellington, and Grant could all sleep at a moment’s notice, even on the battlefield, the result of will-power and habit. I wished I could acquire the gift. Was it possible that I, a woman of no particular education, no particular gift as far as I knew, could become one of the army of workers? That an occupation was necessary, I resolved. I had no money to enjoy my old world, not enough to keep up my old home. There were debts to be paid. The children must be properly educated, something must be done—Ah—but what? Should I turn to the stage? There I felt fairly sure of success. I could walk, talk, move as a lady, knew how to recite and speak; besides, had I not had that girlish offer when I was less capable than now? In the early ’eighties Mrs. J. H. Riddell, the then fashionable novelist, started a magazine called _Home_. Looking back, I fancy she wrote a good deal of the copy herself, anyway, it was fairly successful, and amongst other articles was one called “Here and There,” by an Idle Man. This gives in a few words her impressions of my performance as a girl in the schoolroom. _THEATRICALS_ “SWEETHEARTS.” A Dramatic Contrast, by W. S. GILBERT. ACT I _Garden Scene—Early Spring, 1849._ Harry Spreadbrow (the Young Lover) SIR WILLIAM MAGNAY, BART. Wilcox (the Old Gardener) GENERAL ANDERSON. Jenny Northcott MISS ETHEL B. HARLEY. ACT II _The Fall of the Leaf, after a lapse of Thirty Years._