"No one," I promptly answered.
He laughed a little and nudged his Ellen, then went on: "I mean—who are your people?"
"I have none," I said, then quickly corrected, "except my mother."
"Ah, yes, yes, that's what we want to get at—who is that mother? for I recognize an inherited talent here—a natural grace and ease, impossible for one so young to acquire by any amount of effort."
I was a bit confused—I hesitated. Mrs. Kean asked: "Were both of your parents actors, child?"
Suddenly I broke into laughter. The thought of my mother as an actress filled me with amusement. "Oh, I beg your pardon," I cried, "I have no father, and my mother just works at sewing or nursing or housekeeping or anything she can get to do that's honest."
They looked disappointedly at each other, then Mrs. Kean brightened up and exclaimed: "Then it's foreign blood, Charles—you can see it in her use of her hands."
They turned expectantly to me. I thought of the big, smiling French-Canadian father, who had been the bête noire of my babyhood. My head drooped. "He, my father, was bad," I said, "his father and mother were from the south of France, but he was a horrid Canadian—my mother, though, is a true American," I proudly ended.
"That's it!" they exclaimed together, "the French blood!" and Mr. Kean nodded his head and tapped his brow and said: "You remember, Ellen, what I told you last night—I said 'temperament'—here it is in this small nobody; no offence to you, my girl. Here's our dear niece, who can't act at all, God bless her! our 'blood,' but no temperament. Now listen to me, you bright child!"
He pushed my hair back from my forehead, so that I must have looked quite wild, and went on: "I have seen you watch that dear woman over there, night after night; you admire her, I know." (I nodded hard.) "You think her a great, great way from you?" (More nods.) "A lifetime almost?" (Another nod.) "Then listen to what an old man, but a most experienced actor, prophesies for you. Without interest in high places, without help from anyone, except from the Great Helper of us all, you, little girl, daughter of the true American mother and the bad French father, will, inside of five years, be acting my wife's parts—and acting them well."