Life on the Stage

But hungry or not hungry, I had to take the potato back: "Nothing in the world could be taken without asking--that was stealing--and she was the only person in the world I had a right to ask anything of!"

It was a bitter lesson, and was rendered more so by the fact that when I carried the tear-bathed potato back to the street and laid it down, neither the woman who bought nor the man who sold was in sight--and, dear Heaven! I could almost have eaten it raw.

But I was learning obedience and self-respect; more than that, I was already acquiring one of the necessary qualities for an actress--the power of close observation.

The next four years (the second group) were the hardest to endure of them all. True, I now had sufficient food and warmth, since my mother had given up sewing for shops--which kept us nearly always hungry--and had found other occupations. But the great object of both our lives was to be together, and there are few people who are willing to employ a woman w