A second disappointment followed right on the heels of the first one. I had a second string to my bow, as there was a vacancy in a very good _Stadttheater_ for which I was anxious to try. I opened negotiations with them through my agent, and after the usual delay arranged the _Gastspiels_. Their contralto was also leaving voluntarily. I was to sing the two _Erdas_ and _Ulrica_ in the "Masked Ball." When I got there, I found this changed to the _Erdas_ and _Fricka_, which I had not sung for a year. Then they demanded _Frau Reich_ in "Merry Wives" without a rehearsal instead of the "Siegfried" _Erda_. I was very unhappy, for I knew from this that things were going badly, and that they had no intention of engaging me, no matter how or what I sang. The Direction wrote me that, in spite of my great talents, my voice was not quite large enough for their house. The truth was that their contralto, who was a Jewess and therefore of the same religion as most of the committee, had been offered an increase of salary to remain, and had accepted. The Direction themselves felt badly over the way they had treated me, and the _Intendant_ telephoned to a _Hoftheater_, not far off, where he knew there was going to be a vacancy, to recommend me to their Director in the highest terms. This was Darmstadt, the capital of a small principality, famous for its opera house, which had existed for a hundred years. It is a town of about 100,000 inhabitants, and the residence of the reigning Grand Duke, Ernst Ludwig. His mother had been the Princess Alice of England, daughter of Queen Victoria. He and his second wife, Eleanore, lived with their two little sons at the palace Princess Alice's money had built for them. It was really not a palace at all, but a large, roomy, comfortable house. His beautiful sister, Alexandra, married the Czar of Russia; another sister married the Kaiser's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia. The opera house, called _Hoftheater_, stood high in the second class. In the first class are Berlin, Vienna, Dresden and Münich, with possibly Hamburg. Then come Cologne, Frankfurt and Leipsic, and the _Hoftheaters_ Hanover, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, etc. In the third class are the smaller _Hoftheaters_ like Coburg, and the _Stadttheaters_ like Mainz. In the fourth, are the smallest _Stadttheaters_, and last of all come the little towns which have _Monatsoper_, or a one month season of opera in the year, after the seven month theatres are closed. The first class houses are open all the year, with a four or six weeks' vacation for the singers at different times, so that they shall not all be away together. The next class has a nine months' season, but in the _Hoftheaters_ the salary is paid in monthly instalments for twelve months in the year.