At the door of his house, then, do we find ourselves.
Such a day! the rain pouring down in torrents, the sky leaden, the earth soppy, all cabs engaged, all trains full, all omnibuses wretched.
But once across the hospitable threshold, life casts its cloud-tints, and sunshine seems to reign.
We go upstairs. Can this possibly be the remembered drawing-room? It is parted off from door to window, the side next the hearth being converted into the stage, and the larger half admirably arranged for the accommodation of the spectators.
So, the lover comes to say farewell, and the young lady’s manner will not let him say more. One does not quite like—at least an old fogey like myself, with ideas as much out of fashion as his coat, hesitates, even in such an exclusive publication as Home—to talk about the charms of a living maiden in print; but yet in some future happy time Miss Harley may like to show eyes still younger and brighter than her own are now, the impression she produced upon one not too impressible. Most fair, most sweet, most lovable. With respect as profound as our admiration is deep we write this sentence. We look and wonder. So young, so gifted!
And now we all go downstairs again, to find Wilcox—who we had fancied was dead—alive, and looking exactly as he did thirty years ago, handling meringues and jellies to the ladies, and suggesting coffee, sherry, claret-cup. It is all very pretty and very pleasant. Our last memory, ere we go out into the rain again, is of Jenny Northcott’s lovely face, and our hostess’s kindly farewell; and so we take our leave, feeling—well, we scarcely know how we feel!
At one moment the stage flashed through my mind, but the stage had serious disadvantages my friends at the top of the tree told me. Supers can generally get work, stars can’t. Of course, I hoped to be a star, we all do, and then those kind friends told me of the weary months, perhaps years, without work of those who have reached the top and for whom there are no suitable parts—years of long-drawn-out waiting, ironically called “resting.”
A very amusing account of some theatricals we had the following year, for which Weedon Grossmith and I painted the scenery, appeared in a little book by L. F. Austin, the predecessor of Chesterton on the Illustrated London News—Beerbohm Tree supervised the performance, and his young wife took part.