There was then no idea of my becoming a singer. All my time was given to the piano and to perfecting myself in playing it. But my parents made every effort to have me hear fine singing, for the better cultivation of my musical taste, and I am grateful to them for doing so, as I believe that singing is largely imitative and that, while singers need not begin to train their voices very early, they should as soon as possible familiarise themselves with good singing and with good music generally. The wise artist learns from many sources, some of them quite unexpected ones. Patti once told me that she had caught the trick of her best "turn" from listening to Faure, the baritone. My father and mother went to New York during the Jenny Lind _furore_ and carried me in their arms to hear her big concert. I remember it clearly, and just the way in which she tripped on to the stage that night with her hair, as she always wore it, drawn down close over her ears--a custom that gave rise to the popular report that she had no ears. That concert is my first musical recollection. I was much amused by the baritone who sang _Figaro là Figaro quà_ from _The Barber_. I thought him and his song immensely funny; and everyone around us was in a great state over me because I insisted that the drum was out of tune. I was really dreadfully annoyed by that drum, for it _was_ out of tune! I remember Jenny Lind sang: "Birdling, why sing'st thou in the forest wild? Say why,--say why,--say why!" and one part of it sounded exactly like the call of a bird. Sir Jules Benedict, who was always her accompanist, once told me many years later in London that she had a "hole" in her voice. He said that he had been obliged to play her accompaniments in such a way as to cover up certain notes in her middle register. A curious admission to come from him, I thought, for few people knew of the "hole." Only once during my childhood did I sing in public, and that was in a little school concert, a song _Come Buy My Flowers_, dressed up daintily for the part and carrying a small basketful of posies of all kinds. When I had finished singing, a man in the audience stepped down to the footlights and held up a five-dollar bill. "To buy your flowers!" said he. That might be called my first professional performance! The local paper said I had talent. As a matter of fact, I don't remember much about the occasion; but I do remember only too well a dreadful incident that occurred immediately afterward between me and the editor of the aforesaid local paper,--Mr. Newson by name. I had a pet kitten, and it went to sleep in a rolled up rug beside the kitchen door one day, and the cook stepped on it. The kitten was killed, of course, and the affair nearly killed me. I was crying my eyes out over my poor little pet when that editor chanced along. And he made fun of me! I turned on him in the wildest fury. I really would have killed him if I could.