" When I said I didn't think it
would sound very nice without the harp, as it was only a chant on two or
three notes, some one would say:
"Well, then, the song in 'The Belle's Stratagem'! _That_ has no
accompaniment!"
"No," I used to answer, "but it isn't a song. It's a look here, a
gesture there, a laugh anywhere, _and_ Henry Irving's face everywhere!"
Miss Winifred Emery came to us for "The Belle's Stratagem" and played
the part that I had played years before at the Haymarket. She was
bewitching, and in her white wig in the ball-room, beautiful as well.
She knew how to bear herself on the stage instinctively, and could dance
a minuet to perfection. The daughter of Sam Emery, a great comedian in a
day of comedians, and the granddaughter of _the_ Emery, it was not
surprising that she should show aptitude for the stage.
Mr. Howe was another new arrival in the Lyceum company. He was at his
funniest as Mr. Hardy in "The Belle's Stratagem." It was not the first
time that he had played my father in a piece (we had acted father and
daughter in "The Little Treasure"), and I always called him "Daddy." The
dear old man was much liked by every one. He had a tremendous pair of
legs, was bluff and bustling in manner, though courtly too, and cared
more about gardening than acting.
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