While Ellen Terry was firmly cementing her popularity and ever adding to her fame, two of the younger members of her gifted family had come to the front to add to the honour of the name they bore. These were her sisters, Marion and Florence. It is generally understood that the début of Florence Terry was made in 1870, while the first appearance of Marion Terry was delayed until 1873, but I think there may have been a good many previous tentative performances. The Terrys always believed in groundwork, and we may be sure that these young ladies were carefully taught the art of acting.
My old friend, W. H. Vernon, has told me how, when he was fulfilling his long engagement under Henry Neville's management at the Olympic Theatre, the two young sisters played with him in an old-fashioned one-act drama by John Howard Payne, entitled "Love in Humble Life." Their mother was constantly with them, and Kate Terry used to "coach" her sisters at rehearsal. They were quite unaccustomed to the stage, but, says my friend, "the Terry charm was there, crude, and unformed as it all was."
"Love in Humble Life" does not offer much scope for acting, and the girls had to content themselves with playing on alternate nights the one feminine character of Christine.
In 1870 Florence Terry was certainly ripe for a public appearance in a piece of importance. On June 15th, at the Adelphi—the theatre in which, it will be remembered, her sister Kate had said her farewell—she went through the ordeal and acquitted herself right worthily. The piece was an English version of Molière's "Le Malade Imaginaire," entitled "The Robust Invalid," and her part was that of Louison. Although his name did not appear in the bills, it was generally understood that the adaptation was from the pen of the Terrys' old and well-tried friend, Charles Reade, and the chance was a good one for the young artiste. Vining and Mrs. Seymour were in the cast and all went well.
In connection with "Le Malade Imaginaire," it can never be forgotten that Molière was playing his own creation in it when he broke a blood-vessel. Gallantly he struggled on to the hour of curtain fall, and then, in a dying state, was taken to his home.
In the November of 1870 Florence Terry was engaged to play Little Nell at the Olympic Theatre in Andrew Halliday's stage version of "The Old Curiosity Shop"; probably one of the best adaptations from Dickens (how unsatisfactory they all are!) that has been seen in the theatre.
No one who saw it will forget the exquisite pathos and tenderness with which she endowed the character of the sorely tried, yet always gentle-souled and trusting child. She made us think, as Bret Harte has sweetly put it, that we
"Read aloud the book wherein the Master
Had writ of 'Little Nell,'"
and she took us by the hand until, "on English meadows," her audiences