Well--from time to time after Sir Morton's banquet, I sang in concert. On one occasion I replaced Euphrosyne Parepa--she had not then married Carl Rosa--at one of the Bateman concerts. The Meyerbeer craze was then at its height. Good, sound music it was too, if a little brazen and noisy. _L'Étoile du Nord_ (I don't understand why we always speak of it as _L'Étoile du Nord_ when we never once sang it in French) had been sung in America by my old idol, Mme. de la Grange, nearly ten years before I essayed Catarina. My _première_ in the part was given in Philadelphia; but almost immediately we came back to New York for the spring opera season and I sang _The Star_ as principal attraction. Later on I sang it in Boston. It was always good fun playing in Boston, for the Harvard boys adored "suping" and we had our extra men almost without the asking. They were such nice, clean, enthusiastic chaps! The reason why I remember them so clearly is that I never can forget how surprised I was when, in the boat at the end of the first act of _The Star of the North_, I chanced to look down and caught sight of Peter Barlow (now Judge Barlow) grinning up at me from a point almost underneath me on the stage, and how I nearly fell out of the boat! We had difficulty in finding a satisfactory Prascovia. Prascovia is an important soprano part, and had to be well taken. At last Albites suggested a pupil of his. This was Minnie Hauck. Prascovia was sung at our first performance by Mlle. Bososio who was not equal to the part. Minnie Hauck came into the theatre and sang a song of Meyerbeer's, and we knew that we had found our Prascovia. Her voice was very light but pleasing and well-trained, for Albites was a good teacher. She undoubtedly would add value to our cast. So she made her _début_ as Prascovia, although she afterwards became better known to the public as one of the most famous of the early Carmens. Indeed, many people believed that she created that _rôle_ in America although, as a matter of fact, I sang Carmen several months before she did. As Prascovia she and I had a duet together, very long and elaborate, which we introduced after the tent scene and which made an immense hit. We always received many flowers after it--I, particularly, to be quite candid. By this time I was called The Flower Prima Donna because of the quantities of wonderful blossoms that were sent to me night after night. When singing _The Star of the North_ there was one bouquet that I was sure of getting regularly from a young man who always sent the same kind of flowers. I never needed a card on them or on the box to know from whom they came. Miss Hauck used to help me pick up my bouquets. The only trouble was that every one she picked up she kept! As a rule I did not object, and, anyway, I might have had difficulty in proving that she had appropriated my flowers after she had taken the cards off: but one night she included