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“As I stood before the glass smoothing my hair, I gravely bowed to the reflection and said, ‘Accept my congratulations and best wishes, Wood’s leading lady!’–and then fell on the bed and sobbed … because, you see, the way had been so long and hard, but I had won one goal–I was a leading woman!”

Leaving behind the surroundings of so many years was not a light matter, nor was the parting with the Ellslers, of whose theatrical family she had been a member for so long, easy. When the hour of leave-taking came, she was very sad. She had to make the journey alone, as her mother also was to join her only when she had found a place to settle in. Mr. Ellsler was sick for the first time since she had known him. She said good-by to him in his room, and left feeling very despondent, he seemed so weak. “Judge then,” says Miss Morris, “my amazement when, hearing a knock on my door and calling, ‘Come in’–Mr. Ellsler, pale and almost staggering, entered. A rim of red above his white muffler betrayed his bandaged throat, and his poor voice was but a husky whisper:

“‘I could not help it,’ he said. ‘You were placed under my care once by your mother. You were a child then, and though you are pleased to consider yourself a woman now, I could not bear to think of your leaving the city without some old friend being by for a parting God-speed.’

“I was inexpressibly grateful, but he had yet another surprise for me. He said, ‘I wanted, too, Clara, to make you a little present that would last long and remind you daily of–of–er–the years you have passed in my theater.’

“He drew a small box from his pocket. ‘A good girl and a good actress,’ he said, ‘needs and ought to own a’–he touched a spring, the box flew open–‘a good watch,’ he finished.

“Literally, I could not speak, having such agony of delight in its beauty, of pride in its possession, of satisfaction in a need supplied, of gratitude and surprise immeasurable. ‘Oh!’ and again ‘Oh!’ was all that I could cry, while I pressed it to my cheek and gloated over it. My thanks must have been sadly jumbled and broken, but my pride and pleasure made Mr. Ellsler laugh, and then the carriage was there, and laughter stilled into a silent, close hand-clasp. As I opened the door of the dusty old hack, I saw the first star prick brightly through the evening sky. Then the hoarse voice said, ‘God bless you’–and I had left my first manager.”

To say that Clara Morris made a success in Cincinnati is the barest truth. Her first appearance was in the role of a country girl, Cicely, a simple milkmaid with only one speech to make, but one which taxed the ability of an actress to the uttermost to express what was meant. Clara played this part in a demure black-and-white print gown, with a little hat tied down under her chin. On the second night, she played what is called a “dressed part,” a bright, light-comedy part in which she wore fine clothes; on the third night hers was a “tearful” part. In three nights she completely won the public, and on the third she received her first anonymous gift, a beautiful and expensive set of pink corals set in burnished gold. “Flowers, too, came over the foot-lights, the like of which she had never seen before, some of them costing more than she earned in a week. Then one night came a bolder note with a big gold locket, which, having its sender’s signature, went straight back to him the next morning. As a result it began to be whispered about that the new star sent back all gifts of jewelry; but when one matinee a splendid basket of white camelias came with a box of French candied fruit, it delighted her and created a sensation in the dressing-room. That seemed to start a fashion, for candies in dainty boxes came to her afterward as often as flowers.”