I dared not breathe my aspirations at home; but slowly the leaven worked into my being, and for my future I could see no other life. I bought every magazine I could find which printed a picture of a pretty actress, and eagerly I read the little stories of their successes and achievements, putting each one away in my memory box, and mentally saying:

"So people will read of me some day."

Once I hinted my hopes to Uncle Neil; my aunt, I knew, would have fainted at even a suggestion of the subject. He gently tried to dissuade me, using all the old arguments of tradition as handed about by outsiders. But, although I was silent, I was in no way convinced. It was a possible thing to do, and I would show them all how I could go through. My uncle talked of temptations, but was quite unable to enumerate them, dear soul, from his narrow New England environment, yet he stubbornly "knew that they existed."

The difficulty, to me, was the necessity of some guidance, or advice as to how to make the necessary business arrangements which would procure for me my first engagement, and eagerly I sought in every biography of past or present greatness the record of the first step, or the chance which gave to each her opportunity.

One day, about a year after my encounter with the stranger from the realm of art, I read an article in one of our local newspapers, a notice regarding the visit to our city of a great English actor. He had

with him an American girl as leading woman, and it was the story of her start and rise in the profession which finally brought my resolution to the point where I would arise and achieve though I defied a thousand uncles. Taking the paper in my hand, as though it was to be a guide book on my perilous voyage, I wandered down to the gate in the light of the setting sun, seeming to feel a great uplifting of soul and character, as I realized I should on the morrow make my stand for the right to carve my future for myself. Yet standing there in the western glow, looking out on the peaceful scene of meadow, field and hills stretching away in green rhythmical undulation, growing deep and blue in the distance, I knew, too, that once I had taken the step, I must succeed according to all high ideals of moral character and training, or go down an outcast forever from these good people's lives.

CHAPTER I.

THE BEGINNING OF A CAREER.

At last the sun had broken through the clouds. All the heartache, the weary months of waiting, the haunting fear that after all it might be impossible, had vanished before the dazzling effulgence of the Sun of Promise rising so gaily into the blue sky of Opportunity.

I lived for the first time, that beautiful August day, when I received the long waited for official "call" for rehearsal. There had been no past; no other existence, only this wonderful new gift, the first step towards the coveted goal-an engagement; only a "beginning kind of one"; a wee bit of a part of half a dozen "lines" and to lead the extras"; the latter commodity, I was told, being such young women as we were to pick up from city to city who would "go on in the village dance."

I was still wildly ambitious to play Juliet, Lady Macbeth, and Rosalind, but I must have a beginning, and I was very young, seventeen, although of the serious type which looks older than its years.

At seventeen life is one dulcet rosy prospect in almost any walk of life, but at seventeen in the realm of art what does the future not hold? Work? yes,

but such work; so inspiring, so broadening; an uplifting kind of work that would become really play in its interesting unfolding! And what it held for one after a few years of endeavor, backed, of course, by talent! "The best horse jumps the highest hurdle," my stranger had told me, and what must not the glory be after striving and struggling with every strength to reach one's goal at last and have one's efforts crowned with the public's approval earned by ones's own merit and endeavor!

Looking back now and trying to recall the sensations of that seventeenth year's imagery, that glance into the future, I do not believe that any other vocation holds out such genuine, serious, honest allurements to a woman as does the artistic career. The charm of the work is tremendously appealing, and when one adds to this the independence attendant upon a position quite equal to that of a man's, often surpassing some men's in point of monetary remuneration, well may a woman brave almost any hardship, overcome innumerable obstacles to reach a height so full of compensation for her efforts. Such, at least, was my sensation as, armed with my part of three short speeches, I made my way to the theatre where rehearsals were to be held previous to sending the Company, of which I was to be a member, "on the road." I had already learned, by several severe set backs in attempting to obtain interviews with the better class of managers, that "a road company" engagement was the best I could do as a beginner,

but even this was not really second-class, at that, only the kind which is organized to play, in other cities and towns, a New York city success which is still in its metropolitan "run," or, to speak technically, a No. 2 company.

With my heart beating an almost stifling tat-too against my breast, I passed through the stage entrance (a small doorway on a side street) and gingerly made my way through a long dark passage lined on either side by stacks of scenery piled one wing on top of another and standing upright against the brick walls; trees, cottages, and interiors of houses in bewildering confusion; when suddenly I emerged from this alley of canvas and paint upon a dark, yawning space which I instinctively knew was the stage. How gloomy it looked in the day time, lighted only by one "bunch light" at the stage manager's table in the center and almost over the foot-lights! It seemed, just for a moment, like a great, sinister chasm; formidable, engulfing; but the next instant I became accustomed to the half light, and it changed to a satisfying, almost deliciously creepy, consciousness that it was in reality to be, for the next two weeks, our work shop; and the smell of the paint on the canvas that was every where about us, against the walls and even hanging row on row above our heads, the half chill of the cold dark air, only intensified that indescribable sensation which, I found later, an actor alone can appreciate; half nervous, wholly exciting, invigorating, yet palpitatingly mysterious.