I did not sing again in New York until the January of 1862. Before that we had a short season on the road, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other places. As there were then but nine opera houses in America our itinerary was necessarily somewhat limited. In November of that year I sang in _Les Noces de Jeannette_, in Philadelphia, a charming part although not a very important one. It is a simple little operetta in one act by Victor Macci. The _libretto_ was in French and I sang it in that language. Pleasing speeches were made about my French and people wanted to know where I had studied it--I, who had never studied it at all except at home! The opera was not long enough for a full evening's entertainment, so Miss Hinckley was put on in the same bill in Donizetti's _Betly_. The two went very well together. The critics found _Jeannette_ a great many surprising things, "broad," "risqué," "typically French," and so on. In reality it was innocent enough; but it must be remembered that this was a day and generation which found _Faust_ frightfully daring, and _Traviata_ so improper that a year's hard effort was required before it could be sung in Brooklyn. I sympathised with one critic, however, who railed against the translated _libretto_ as sold in the lobby. After stating that it was utter nonsense, he added with excellent reason: "But this was to have been expected. That anyone connected with an opera house should know enough about English to make a decent translation into it is, of course, quite out of the question." It was really funny about _Traviata_. In 1861 President Chittenden, of the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, made a sensational speech arraigning the plot of _Traviata_,[1] and protesting against its production in Brooklyn on the grounds of propriety, or, rather, impropriety. Meetings were held and it was finally resolved that the opera was objectionable. The feeling against it grew into a series of almost religious ceremonies of protest and, as I have said, it took Grau a year of hard effort to overcome the opposition. When, at last, in '62, the opera was given, I took part; and the audience was all on edge with excitement. There had been so much talk about it that the whole town turned out to see _why_ the Directors had withstood it for a year. Every clergyman within travelling distance was in the house. [1] The book is founded upon Dumas's _La Dame aux Camélias_.