After a short season in Stockholm, where once more I had the pleasure of singing before dear old King Oscar, I found myself in Berlin. One morning my maid brought me this telephone message:-- Heinrich Conried of New York is at the Hotel Bristol. Will Miss Farrar please come down and sing for him? I promptly had the maid telephone carefully as follows:-- Miss Farrar is at her home, and, if Herr Conried wishes to call, she will be glad to see him. Later that same day Herr Conried called. He was scouting Europe for artists for the Metropolitan, and he had been advised by Maurice Grau to keep a watchful eye upon my career. [Illustration: WOLF-FERRARI SIGNED photo: Alla stupenda "Rosaura" Geraldine Farrar con animo grato Wolf-Ferrari 1912 Venezia.] We talked of his plans for New York, and Herr Conried expressed a wish to have me return to my native land. Of course, from the day I had first dreamed of singing in grand opera, the Metropolitan had been my ultimate goal, but now that the moment for considering so important a step had come I was very wary. Knowing that New York was loyal to some of the older artists still under contract, I wanted to protect my interests as best I could while working up my career in America. I do not believe that Mr. Conried was then very anxious to have me come; certainly he was much taken aback when I stated my ideas of the contract. They were so entirely at divergence with his that the interview came to nothing, and he departed. I was neither glad nor sorry. I telegraphed Maurice Grau the result, to which he laconically replied:-- Don't worry, he'll be back. Having been many years in that same position, _vis-a-vis_ prima donnas, Maurice Grau well knew whereof he spoke, for indeed Mr. Conried did "come back," finding me on my vacation in Franzensbad, where I had been very busily concerned looking up all manner of contracts for America. After much obstinacy on my part and reiteration on his, we managed to close the contract. Besides my guaranteed operatic performances I was to sing in no private houses unless agreeable to me and only for special compensation; and I incorporated every possible clause imaginable about dressing-rooms, drawing-rooms on trains, carriages, railroad fares for my mother and my maids on tour, and in fact every conceivable concession which the most arrogant prima donna might demand. Not that I really cared about such items of expense, but I was determined to enter the Metropolitan _en dignite_, and I did.