Their house in Lavender Sweep was lovely. I can hardly bear to
go near that part of London now, it is so horribly changed. Where are
its green fields and its chestnut-trees? We were always welcome at the
Taylors', and every Sunday we heard music and met interesting
people--Charles Reade among them. Mrs. Taylor had rather a hard
outside--she was like Mrs. Charles Kean in that respect--and I was often
frightened out of my life by her; yet I adored her. She was in reality
the most tender-hearted, sympathetic woman, and what an admirable
musician! She composed nearly all the music for her husband's plays.
Every Sunday there was music at Lavender Sweep--quartet playing with
Madame Schumann at the piano.
Tom Taylor was one of the most benign and gentle of men, a good and a
loyal friend. At first he was more interested in my sister Kate's career
than in mine, as was only natural; for, up to the time of my first
marriage, Kate had a present, I only a future. Before we went to Bristol
and played with the stock company, she had made her name. At the St.
James's Theater, in 1862, she was playing a small part in a version of
Sardou's "Nos Intimes," known then as "Friends and Foes," and in a later
day and in another version as "Peril.
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