I don't know where to begin to tell you about this wonderful escapade of ours. I call it my "bravura act." It is too exciting! I copy a letter just received from Strakosch, in answer to a letter of mine, to show you what the process of "working up" is. He writes: "You wonder at your big audiences. The reason is very simple. In the first place, people know that you are thought to be the best amateur singer in Paris--'La Diva du Monde'--besides being a favorite in Parisian society, and that you have not only a beautiful voice, but also that you have beautiful toilettes. This is a great _attraction_. In the second place, I allow (_as a great privilege_) the tickets to be subscribed for; the remaining ones are bought at auction. You see, in this way the bids go _'way up_.... I am glad I secured Sarasate to supplement," etc. We have taken a suite of rooms in the Clarendon Hotel, so as to be near the opera-house, where I go to practise with the orchestra. You cannot imagine how intense the whole thing is. To feel that I can hold a great audience, like the one that greeted me the first night, in my hand, and to know that I can make them laugh or cry whenever I please--to see the mass of upturned faces--is an inspiring sensation. The applause bewildered me at first, and I was fearfully excited; but one gets used to all things in the end. My songs, "Bel raggio" (Rossini), "Voi che sapete" (Mozart), and "La Valse de Pardon de Ploërmel" (Meyerbeer), were all encored and re-encored. I said to Strakosch, "I can't go on forever, tripping on and off the stage like that!" He answered, laconically, "Well, you see people have paid much for their tickets, and they want their money's worth." I said, "I wish the tickets cost less." The flowers (you should have seen them!) were mostly what they call here "floral tributes" (what you would call _des pièces montées_), and were brought in by a procession of ushers and placed on the stage. I do not mention the quantities of bouquets handed up to me!