Mr. Grau was exceedingly pleased with the promise I showed and especially predicted a brilliant future in operatic singing; but he seconded my mother's sensibly planned course for me to study more quietly, less in public view, and wait till a few years of hard work and experience had passed over my ambitious little head. As a kind afterthought he added, no doubt to soften the sting of my disappointment: "Would you like to sing in one of our Sunday night concerts?" [Illustration: MAURICE GRAU] "No, thank you, Mr. Grau," I replied. (No tame concert appearances after my imagination had been dazzled by a possible debut in opera!) "But it might be valuable to you to have your name on the billboards of the Metropolitan Opera House," he urged good-naturedly. "You will see it there some day," I replied with firm conviction. He laughed, and certainly had no more reason to take me more seriously than dozens of other young "hopefuls" who dreamed of some day storming the Metropolitan doors. Quite without my knowledge or consent, various reports of this and other incidents in regard to my singing reached the newspapers, and I experienced a distinct shock when I read in the New York "Herald" the following amusing yet caustic criticism:-- If half of what Miss Geraldine Farrar's enthusiastic friends say of her vocal and dramatic talents is true, then this sixteen-year-old girl from Boston is the dramatic soprano for whom we have all been waiting these many years. With all due respect to the young lady, a lot of rubbish has been circulated as to her marvelous, not to say miraculous, vocal gifts and accomplishments, and she cannot do better than include, in the nightly prayers which all good girls say, an earnest invocation to Heaven to preserve her from her friends, that she may be saved from the results of overpraise. That Miss Farrar has a wonderful gift of song has been attested by so many discreet judges that it is doubtless true. But when alleged admirers of the young singer tack on all sorts of trimmings, such as that Madame Melba wept with joy upon hearing her, and that Madame Nordica said, "This is the voice of which I have dreamed," and that Miss Emma Thursby refused to be comforted until Miss Farrar consented to come and live with her, it is about time to add, "and then she woke up."