Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/356

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348 ADELAIDE PHILLIPS. part in a number of fairy spectacles. With the company her bright sayings, her simple manners, and obliging- temper made her a favorite. " They were so kind to me," she said in later years ; " they took such care of me, for I was but a child when I first appeared there, so much of a child that I used to drive my hoop back and forth to the rehearsals. The work was play to me ; I learned my parts easily and was petted and praised, which was very pleasant." She was so much a child, too, that one day she arrived at the theatre crying so bitterly that for some time she was unable to explain what was the matter. Her trouble proved to be that a beautiful doll in a shop window that she passed every day, a doll which she had set her heart upon possessing, had that morning vanished from its usual station. Somebody else had bought it, and Ade- laide was disconsolate. It was long before she could be comforted, and her happiness was not fully restored until the good-natured stage-manager presented her with another doll, even prettier than the one she had longed for. As she grew older she had many characters assigned her, and worked faithfully in her profession. A farce always followed the play in those days, and she frequently appeared in both. Often, too, she sustained a part in fairy spectacles such as Fair Star and Cinderella — pieces in which her graceful dancing as well as her beautiful voice fitted her to shine. Never but once did she lose command of her counte- nance upon the stage, and that was in these early days at the Museum. " It was," she said, " in some farce where Mr. Warren was shut up in a pantry closet, while I, apparently uncon- scious of the fact, was playing the piano accompaniment to a song. He suddenly opened the door and looked out,