Not more than a fortnight after this I had an offer for an engagement at the Madrid Opera for $400.00 a night, very good for Spain in those days. I suppose that it came indirectly through the influence of Queen Christina. I wanted to go to Spain, but my mother would not let me accept. We were almost pioneers of travel in the modern sense and had no one to give us authoritative ideas of other countries. People alarmed us about the climate, declaring it unhealthy; and about the public, which they said was capricious and rude. The warning about the public particularly frightened me. I should never object to my efforts being received in silence in case of disapproval, but I felt that I could not survive what I had been told was the Spanish custom of hissing. I was also told that Spanish audiences were very mercurial and difficult to win. So we refused the Madrid Opera offer, and I have never sung in either Spain or Italy principally because of my dread of the hissing habit. That same year I heard Christine Nilsson for the first time, in _Martha_ at the Théâtre Lyrique and, later, in _Hamlet_ at the same theatre with Faure. Shortly after both Nilsson and Faure were taken over by the Grand Opera. Ophélie had been written for Nilsson and composed entirely around her voice. She created the part, singing it exquisitely, and Ambrose Thomas paid her the compliment of taking his two principal soprano melodies from old Swedish folk-songs. Nilsson could sing Swedish melodies in a way to drive one crazy or break one's heart. I have been quite carried away with them again and again. There was one delicious song that she called _Le Bal_ in which a young fellow asks a girl to dance and she is very shy. It was slight, but ever so pretty, and it had a minor melody that was typically northern. These were the good days before her voice became impaired. In this connection I may mention that it was Christine Nilsson who, having heard the Goodwin girls sing _Way Down upon the Swanee River_, first introduced it on the stage as an _encore_.