The week after my _début_ we went to Boston to sing. Boston would not have _Rigoletto_. It was considered objectionable, particularly the ending. For some inexplicable reason _Linda di Chamounix_ was expected to be more acceptable to the Bostonian public, and so I was to sing the part of Linda instead of that of Gilda. I had been working on Linda during a part of the year in which I studied Gilda, and was quite equal to it. The others of the company went to Boston ahead of me, and I played Linda at a _matinée_ in New York before following them. This was the first time I sang in opera with Brignoli. I went on in the part with only one rehearsal. Opera-goers do not hear _Linda_ any more, but it is a graceful little opera with some pretty music and a really charmingly poetic story. It was taken from the French play, _La Grâce de Dieu_, and _Rigoletto_ was taken from Victor Hugo's _Le Roi S'Amuse_. The story of _Linda_ is that of a Swiss peasant girl of Chamounix who falls in love with a French noble whom she has met as a strolling painter in her village. He returns to Paris and she follows him there, walking all the way and accompanied by a faithful rustic, Pierotto, who loves her humbly. He plays a hurdy-gurdy and Linda sings, and so the poor young vagrants pay their way. In Paris the nobleman finds her and lavishes all manner of jewels and luxuries upon little Linda, but at last abandons her to make a rich marriage. On the same day that she hears the news of her lover's wedding her father comes to her house in Paris and denounces her. She goes mad, of course. Most operatic heroines did go mad in those days. And, in the last act, the peasant lover with the hurdy-gurdy takes her back to Chamounix among the hills. On the lengthy journey he can lure her along only by playing a melody that she knows and loves. It is a dear little story; but I never could comprehend how Boston was induced to accept the second act since they drew the line at _Rigoletto_!