The bracelet and the ring are among the dearest things I possess. Their value to me is much greater than any money could be, for they symbolise my young girl's sudden comprehension of the fact that I had made my countrymen proud of me! That seemed like the high-water mark; the finest thing that could happen. Annetta was my second creation. There could hardly be imagined a greater contrast than she presented to the part of Marguerite. Gretchen was all the virtues in spite of her somewhat spectacular career; gentleness and sweetness itself. Annetta, the ballad singer, was quite the opposite. I must say that I really enjoyed making myself shrewish, sparkling, and audacious. Perhaps I thus took out in the lighter _rôles_ I sang many of my own suppressed tendencies. Although I lived such an essentially ungirlish life, I was, nevertheless, full of youthful feeling and high spirits, so, when I was Annetta or Zerlina or Rosina, I had a flying chance to "bubble" just a little bit. Merriment is one of the finest and most helpful emotions in the world and I dare say we all have the possibilities of it in us, one way or another. But it is a shy sprite and does not readily come to one's call. I often think that the art, or the ability,--on the stage or off it--which makes people truly and innocently gay, is very high in the scale of human importance. Personally, I have never been happier than when I was frolicking through some entirely light-weight opera, full of whims and quirks and laughing music. I used to feel intimately in touch with the whole audience then, as though they and I were sharing some exquisite secret or delicious joke; and I would reach a point of ease and spontaneity which I have never achieved in more serious work. _Crispino_ had made a tremendous hit in Paris the year before when Malibran had sung Annetta with brilliant success. It has been sometimes said that Grisi created the _rôle_ of Annetta in America; but I still cling to the claim of that distinction for myself. The composers of the opera were the Rice brothers. I do not know of any other case where an opera has been written fraternally; and it was such a highly successful little opera that I wish I knew more about the two men who were responsible for it. All that I remember clearly is that they both of them knew music thoroughly and that one of them taught it as a profession.