clear, like a child’s, and a voice so nasal, so strident, so dreadful that when she parted her pretty lips and spoke, the sound shocked you like a peacock’s raucous screech.

Harrietta had managed to get a bit for her here, a bit for her there, until by the time she was eighteen she was giving a fairly creditable performance in practically speechless parts. It was dangerous to trust her even with an “Ah, there you are!” line. The audience, startled, was so likely to laugh.

At about this point she vanished, bound for Hollywood and the movies. “She’s the little fool, just,” said Irish Mary. “What’ll she be wantin’ with the movies, then, an’ her mother connected with the theayter for years an’ all, and her you might say brought up in it?”