The pupil's singing was much admired, for few besides herself and her master could detect that anything was amiss with her voice. She was not inclined, therefore, to realise the importance of his decision, and after a few months' work she cheerfully accepted an invitation to spend the winter abroad. When she informed him of this he bade her farewell, saying that it would be perfectly useless for her to come back to him, because, when accepting her as a pupil, his condition was--"One year's uninterrupted study." Thinking it would be an easy matter to talk him over, she came back to him on her return. But she had not reckoned with the iron will of the maestro. He refused to give her any more lessons. For over an hour she sat in his room, and as one lesson after another was given, she could not keep back her tears. The situation became intense, but the teacher did not lose control. He was pained to see her sorrow, and at last rose from his seat and led her gently away, saying, "Never in my life have I wavered over a decision once made; I cannot do so now. You must make the best of what you know already; you will probably get engagements, but do not base your future on singing." Time has proved that he was right. After a few years she began to lose her high notes rapidly, and soon her voice was completely gone. I have already alluded to the maestro's hatred of the tremolo. In this connection an old pupil has sent me the following note:-- "I was going through the various exercises in the book, 'Hints on Singing,' and one day, after I had been studying some little time, there came the usual query, 'What is the next exercise we come to?' 'The shake,' I replied promptly, and added, 'Shall I take that?' The maestro gave a quiet smile as he answered, 'Well, no, I think not. You shake quite enough for the present. We will pass on to the following one. With this gentle rebuke at the tremolo, of which I had not as yet been able to get rid, he went on to tell me how he had been at the opera a few nights before, 'and, Mon Dieu, what tremolo! I could have howled like a dog as I listened.'" Not only had Manuel Garcia a remarkably accurate ear, but he possessed the gift of "absolute pitch," a fact shown by the following anecdote. A friend called to see him one afternoon, and the conversation turned upon the question of pitch. Garcia shook his head reproachfully when the visitor, who was some seventy years his junior, stated that he could not tell what a note was by ear.