Miss Adams was irresistible as Lady Babbie. As the quaint, slyly humorous, make-believe gipsy, she found full play for all her talents, and she captured her audience almost with her first speech.
Charles Frohman sat nervously in the wings during the performance. When the curtain went down his new star said to him:
"How did it go?"
"Splendidly," was his laconic comment.
"The Little Minister" ran at the Empire for three hundred consecutive performances, two hundred and eighty-nine of which were to "standing room only." The total gross receipts for the engagement were $370,000—a record for that time.
On the last night of the run Miss Adams received the following cablegram from Barrie:
Thank you, thank you all for your brilliant achievement. "What a glory to our kirk."
Barrie.
Maude Adams was now launched as a profitable and successful star. Like many other conscientious and idealistic interpreters of the drama, she had a great reverence for Shakespeare, and she burned with a desire to play in one of the great bard's plays. Charles Frohman knew this. Then, as always, one of his supreme ambitions in life was to gratify her every wish, so he announced that he would present her in a special all-star production of "Romeo and Juliet."
Charles Frohman himself was always frank enough to say that he had no great desire to produce Shakespeare. He lived in the dramatic activities of his day. It was shortly before this time that his brother Daniel, entering his office one day, found him reading.
"I am reading a new book," he said; "that is, new to me."