The parts we play influence our characters to some extent, and Puck made me a bit of a romp.  I grew vain and rather “cocky,” and it was just as well that during the rehearsals for the Christmas pantomime in 1857 I was tried for the part of the Fairy Dragonetta and rejected.  I believe that my failure was principally due to the fact that Nature had not given me flashing eyes and raven hair—­without which, as everyone knows, no bad fairy can hold up her head and respect herself.  But at the time I felt distinctly rebuffed, and only the extreme beauty of my dress as the maudlin “good fairy” Goldenstar consoled me.  Milly Smith (afterwards Mrs. Thorn) was Dragonetta, and one of her speeches ran like this: 

    “Ungrateful Simple Simon (darting forward) You thought no doubt to
      spite me! 
    That to this Royal Christening you did not invite me! 
    BUT—­(Mrs. Kean:  “You must plaster that ‘but’ on the white wall
    at the back of the gallery.")—­
    But on this puling brat revenged I’ll be! 
    My fiery dragon there shall have her broiled for tea!”

At Ryde during the previous summer my father had taken the theater, and Kate and I played in several farces which the Keeleys and the great comedian Robson had made famous in London.  My performances as Waddilove and Jacob Earwig had provoked some one to describe me as “a perfect little heap of talent!” To fit my Goldenstar, I must borrow that phrase and describe myself as a perfect little heap of vanity.

It was that dress!  It was a long dress, though I was still a baby, and it was as pink and gold as it was trailing.  I used to think I looked beautiful in it.  I wore a trembling star on my forehead, too, which was enough to upset any girl!

One of the most wearisome, yet essential details of my education is connected with my first long dress.  It introduces, too, Mr. Oscar Byrn, the dancing-master and director of crowds at the Princess’s.  One of his lessons was in the art of walking with a flannel blanket pinned on in front and trailing six inches on the floor.  My success in carrying out this maneuver with dignity won high praise from Mr. Byrn.  The other children used to kick at the blanket and progress in jumps like young kangaroos, but somehow I never had any difficulty in moving gracefully.  No wonder then that I impressed Mr. Byrn, who had a theory that “an actress was no actress unless she learned to dance early.”  Whenever he was not actually putting me through my paces, I was busy watching him teach the others.  There was the minuet, to which he used to attach great importance, and there was “walking the plank.”  Up and down one of the long planks, extending the length of the stage, we had to walk first slowly and then quicker and quicker until we were able at a considerable pace to walk the whole length of it without deviating an inch from the straight line.  This exercise, Mr. Byrn used to say, and quite truly, I think, taught us uprightness of carriage and certainty of step.