the same comrades she had known and loved in youth. They had grown white or gray, but Sarah seemed unchanged by all those years.

It was amusing to observe how unconcealed was her enjoyment of good food. She did not eat much and she drank only enough to aid digestion. Her taste was simple. She could feast on a plain herring. But if she had a fancy for some dish, she made no effort to disguise the joy it gave her. I wish many could have seen her, as I did one night prepare a meal for a few guests with a big chafing-dish. Her handling of the eggs and mushrooms was so dramatic that it was almost like the third act of a drama. Between those mushrooms and those eggs she talked incessantly. The way she flung them in the pan was wholly tragic. But the result was a delightful omelet, in which no critic could have found the slightest flaw.

She allowed no pleasure to disturb her in her work. The love of work to her was almost a religion. When she had entertained a group of us at déjeuner, she would glance quickly at the clock, throw down her serviette, dip her fingers in her bowl, and leave the table, with a cry of "Au travail!" Not once in all the many years I knew her till that sad trouble with her leg, was she faithless in her duty to the public. She seldom in her life missed a rehearsal or an engagement.

No matter what the cost, she would go on some nights when she was spitting blood and having fainting spells. "Quand Même," her motto, was her guide, her gospel. "In spite of everything," she had to act.

I have sometimes wondered if the public knew how direly Sarah suffered on some tours to serve it. For years, before she had that leg cut off, she had had anguish from a tortured knee-cap. And on the last of her repeated visits here, when she had lost the power to walk, did many guess that her poor shortened stump had never healed since that dread amputation? Her sense of humor, tho, sustained her somewhat. She smiled and smiled and smiled despite her painthe triumph of a great mind over matter-the power of will defying brutal facts. One evening, halting for an hour in Albany, at the suggestion of her manager, I sent my card to Mme. Sarah in her car. It had been shunted till next morning to a siding.

To my dismay, I heard a shriek of rage as her colored servant took my message in to her.

I walked away, but called again soon after, when Sarah, with a laugh, explained her fury.

"They brought your card in at an awkward moment," said Sarah, as she gave me a most gracious greeting. "Just then, you see, I was trying on-my new cork leg!"

And think of all she did, with one leg missing. Not in the glory of her youth, as I can swear, did she perform the last act of "La Dame aux Camélias" more touchingly, more delicately, with more finished art, than on her final tour in the United States.

Mme. Sarah's energy was inconceivable. Her curiosity was boundless and insatiable. When I was traveling in this country on her train, at every station where it stopped for even half an hour, she would alight and call a hack or motor-car, and drive about till it was time to get into her private car again. She seemed to notice every sign of change in every town which she had ever visited. And tho she never learned to speak more than a few disjected phrases in our tongue, she somehow found out nearly all she wished to know.

When she was over sixty-four, at her own theater in the Place du Châtelet, within twelve hours she carried out this program: From 2 to 5 P. M. she appeared as Phèdre. From 5 to 6 she had a host of visitors. She changed her dress and rested for an hour. At 7 she gave a dinner to ten friends. At 8 she left the table, and went on again as the young hero (not the heroine) of a new three-act comedy. She changed into a dainty evening-gown and sat through a short two-act afterpiece. She drove to her abode, three miles away, and entertained more

friends at supper. She would keep up this life for months and months on end.

On the occasion that I have in mind just now, among the guests with whom I dined (behind the scenes of the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt) were Georges Clairin, Gaston de Bérardi (long director of the The Indépendance Belge), and Edmond Rostand. author of "Les Romanesques" and "Cyrano" was a pale, bloodless man, with well-cut features, a mustache, and little hair above his lofty forehead. He seldom spoke, and invented not one epigram that evening. He impressed one by his fine romantic air and his distinction. Rostand, you know, had once saved Sarah's life, when she was sinking in the waves close to Belle-Isle.

I somehow think this fact affected Sarah's judgment of the author. She used to rave of him in the same breath with Shakespeare. While we were dallying with the roast that evening, a maid brought in a telegram. Mme. Sarah opened it and passed it round. the table.

"From Queen Alexandra," said our hostess. "To thank me for condoling with her yesterday on King Edward's death."

It was curiosity, not passion, that induced her to try marriage for a change. Her husband, the Greek actor Damala, soon cured her of her matrimonial

fantasy. He had accumulated debts on debts. He was unfaithful and he was ungrateful. And then his health broke down. Tho he had long since left her for another actress, his wife nursed him when the doctors gave him up. I hardly think she mourned him very deeply, tho, when she was widowed.

To Sarah youth appealed much more than age. Not her own youth, which she retained as by a miracle till she was almost seventy, but that of others, girls and boys, and chiefly students. In Rome one day she went into hysterics as I sat with her, because her manager would not allow the Roman students free admission to a performance she was giving there that evening. To please young people she would have done anything. She loved to help and cheer and inspire them in their struggles.

She was always grateful to Americans and English folk for the encouragement they gave her so unstintedly. Tho she was always facing crowds, she hated contact with what Frenchmen call "the people." She was exclusive, almost morbidly exclusive. Rather than mix with strangers in a public car, she would drive miles and miles in her auto or her carriage.

To those who had had the privilege of seeing her in the heyday of her fame, Sarah stood apart from her most brilliant rivals. She towered above all