Oh, blissful quiet days! How soon they came to an end! Already the shadow of financial trouble fell across my peace. Yet still I never thought of returning to the stage.
One day I was driving in a narrow lane, when the wheel of the pony-cart came off. I was standing there, thinking what I should do next, when a whole crowd of horsemen in "pink" came leaping over the hedge into the lane. One of them stopped and asked if he could do anything. Then he looked hard at me and exclaimed: "Good God! it's Nelly!"
The man was [Charles Reade].
"Where have you been all these years?" he said.
"I have been having a very happy time," I answered.
"Well, you've had it long enough. Come back to the stage!"
"No, never!"
"You're a fool! You ought to come back."
Suddenly I remembered the bailiff in the house a few miles away, and I said laughingly: "Well, perhaps, I would think of it if some one would give me forty pounds a week!"
"Done!" said Charles Reade. "I'll give you that, and more, if you'll come and play Philippa Chester in '[The Wandering Heir].'"