"Not immediately. While I was resting in Chicago the manager of The Bostonians came to see me to talk about an engagement. Agnes Huntington was their contralto, but they wanted to replace her. At first I said 'No!' point blank. I thought nothing would induce me to leave the comfort and seclusion of my home. Then the manager came to see me again, and--well, woman-like I changed my mind." During her first seasons with The Bostonians, Mrs. Davis's repertory was an extensive one and comprised the Marchioness in "Suzette," Dorothea in "Don Quixote," Cynisca in "Pygmalion and Galatea," Vladimir Samoiloff in "Fatinitza," Siebel in "Faust," Nancy in "Martha," Azucena in "The Troubadour," Carmen in "Carmen," and the Queen of the Gipsies in "The Bohemian Girl." Her great success as Alan-a-Dale in "Robin Hood," brought out at the Grand Opera House in Chicago on June 9, 1890, followed, and this part kept her busy for several seasons. While The Bostonians were on their long hunt--not yet finished, I believe--for a successor to "Robin Hood," Mrs. Davis appeared in "The Maid of Plymouth," "In Mexico," or, "A War-time Wedding," "The Knickerbockers," "Prince Ananias," and "The Serenade," with its beautiful "Song of the Angelus." I think it was in 1896 that Mrs. Davis estimated that she had sung "Oh, Promise Me," that popular interpolated song in "Robin Hood," something like five thousand times. "Robin Hood" had received at that time 2041 performances, and she had appeared in it all but twenty-five or thirty of them. "Oh, Promise Me" always got an encore, and often a double encore, which brought the number up to Mrs. Davis's estimate. "I don't tire so much of the acting of a role as I do singing the same words and music night after night," she continued. "I sang 'Oh, Promise Me' until I thought they ought to blow paper wads at me. One day in Denver I said to our conductor, Sam Studley, 'Sam, I'm so sick of "Oh, Promise Me" that I've made up mind to sing something else.' 'Jessie,' he said, 'I don't blame you!' So it was agreed that on the following night I would substitute another of DeKoven's sentimental songs. But they wouldn't have it. I had no sooner commenced singing it than there were shouts from all over the house of 'Oh, Promise Me!' 'We want "Oh, Promise Me!"' I managed to struggle through one verse, and then ran off the stage laughing. Then Mr. Studley struck up the introductory to 'Oh, Promise Me,' and I went back and satisfied the audience by singing their favorite ballad. It's an awful fate to become identified with a single song. "Being a singer is not like being an actress. If you are a singer, your voice must be your first care. An actress, if she gets over-tired, can go on and spare herself. A singer cannot. An actress can use less voice at one time than at another. A singer cannot. Now, over-fatigue, excitement, anxiety, all affect the voice by which the singer lives.