CHAPTER II.

MARRIAGE.

As Sarah Kemble passed from childhood to early womanhood, she continued to act the round of all the company's plays, taking more important parts as she grew older. The very atmosphere she breathed was dramatic. To walk the stage was a second nature to her. She was not, however, at the same time shut out from common-place every-day matters. She helped her mother in the household work, and went from a rehearsal to the making of a pudding or the darning of a pair of stockings. There is little doubt that this free mixing in the simple family life of her home gave a healthy balance to her mind. Like her mother, she always kept her domestic life intact in the midst of her professional occupations, and ever remained simple and womanly. Her fine friends in later days would tell how they had found her ironing a frock for one of her children, or studying a new part while she rocked the cradle of the last baby.

At the age of sixteen, Sarah's beauty had attracted the attention of her audiences. One or two squires of the county places they visited offered her their homage; but before she was seventeen her affections were