The girl, Annie, chanced to overhear her, and fell to weeping bitterly. Miss Eytinge noticed her, had her heart touched by the spectacle, soothed the child, and allowed her to play the part. Later on she appeared in the chorus of a juvenile "Pinafore" company, and was soon promoted to be Josephine.
Then she made a big jump—to the West Indies, to look out for her small brother Tommy, the "child actor" of the company, later one of the two famous Fauntleroys and now a dramatic critic on a New York paper. While with this troupe she was pressed into service to fill a big variety of parts, giving her a good foundation on which to build her big hit in the sun-bonnet of "Esmeralda."
She followed this with another success, in an altogether different line—the poetical one of "Elaine," and then fell ill. For some years she remained off the boards, close to death's door, and returned to them finally in a weakling play by Sydney Grundy, "The New Woman."
She took the taste of this out of the public's mouth by a triumph both here and in London with "Sue," and then went into the background once more with "Catherine," from the French.
Her real arrival as a popular star was made in the autumn of '99, at the Lyceum, in "Miss Hobbs."
MEDAL SET MANTELL GOING.
He Was Encouraged to Become an Actor
by a Prize Which, as a Boy, He Won
for Proficiency in Declamation.
Mantell, now in Shakespeare, made his professional start as a sergeant. This was in 1874, in the Rochdale Theater, Lancashire, England, under the stage name of Hudson. The play was "Arrah-na Pogue." He was born in Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, on the 7th of February, 1854, but was brought up in Ireland, where he won a medal at school for his proficiency in declamation. This turned his attention to the amateur stage, where his first appearance was made as De Mauprat in "Richelieu."
He came to America in the same year that he began to act professionally, and he procured an engagement with the Museum stock company in Boston. But he soon returned to England, where he remained for four years, acting in the provinces, and when the States saw him again it was in 1878, when he and Miller were with Modjeska.
His first real lift into popularity arrived when Fanny Davenport engaged him for Loris in "Fedora." In this part he was accounted one of the best-looking men who had trod the American boards, and he established a vogue for himself that paved the way for his stellar career of several years in the one play "Monbars."