It is a pity that so excellent an object as a brick chapel should be the evil genius of the play.  Yet so it is.  Built of the materials of Scandinavian drama, it is always just round the corner, heavy with doom.  We never see it, but we hear more than enough about it, and in the end it becomes a bore which we are well rid of.

The theme of the perils of foster-motherhood is not new, but Mrs. MERRICK has treated it freshly and with a very decent avoidance of its strictly sexual aspects.  But her methods are too sedentary.  She kept on with her atmosphere long after we knew the details of the cottage interior by heart; while a whole volume of active tragedy—­Mary’s six months in London—­was left to our fevered imagination.  And the sense of reality which she was at such pains to create was spoiled by dialogue freely carried on in the immediate vicinity of persons who were not supposed to overhear it.

The chief attraction of Mary-Girl (a silly title) was the engaging personality of Miss MAY BLAYNEY.  Always a fascinating figure to watch, she showed an extraordinary sensitiveness of voice and expression.  As for that honest and admirable actor, Mr. MCKINNEL, who made the perfect foil to her charms that every good husband should wish to be, he seems never to tire of playing these stern, dour, semi-brutal parts.  That more genial characters are open to him his success in Great Catherine showed.  Miss MARY BROUGH, as a charwoman, supplied a rare need with her richly-flavoured humour and its clipped sentences.  All the rest did themselves justice.  Miss HELEN FERRERS was a shade more aristocratic than the aristocrat of stage tradition; and it was not the fault of Miss DOROTHY FANE (as her daughter, Lady Folkington) that she was required to behave incredibly in the presence of her inferiors.  I have not much to say for the manners of Society in its own circles; but it is probably at its best in its intercourse with humbler neighbours.  Mrs. MERRICK’s picture of the Countess on a visit to the Sheppards’ cottage might have been designed for a poster of the Land Campaign.

There was no dissenting note, I am glad to say, in the reception of Mrs. MERRICK’s charming self when she appeared after the fall of the curtain.

“A pretty authoress!” said an actress in the stalls.

“Is that your comment on the play?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said.

O.S.

* * * * *

    “Her Majesty was accompanied by Princess Henry and
    John.”—­Liverpool Echo.

Where was Lord SAYE AND SELE?

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “COME, COME, SIR!  THAT’S THE HORSE WE KEEP FOR QUITE YOUNG CHILDREN!  HE WANTS TO PLAY WITH YOU, SIR!”]

* * * * *

THE LAST STRAW.

  I sing the sofa!  It had stood for years,
    An invitation to benign repose,
  A foe to all the fretful brood of fears,
    Bidding the weary eye-lid sink and close. 
  Massive and deep and broad it was and bland—­
  In short the noblest sofa in the land.