She made her début in England in _Monte Cristo_, in November 1897. She has remained the popular favourite of the English public ever since, and perhaps not of the English public only, but of the American also. Amid the crowd of dancers of all nationalities she has maintained her pride of place. In _Vineland_ her dancing first seemed to attain its full brilliance. Then followed the _Milliner Duchess_ and _High Jinks_, the latter notable for the famous hunting scene in which the verve and spirit of her dancing won all hearts. Finally came Delibes’ _Coppelia_, an example of the classic ballet at its best. _Coppelia_ was to Genée what _La Sylphide_ was to Taglioni, _Giselle_ to Grisi, and _Eoline_ to Lucille Grahn. Naturally it is, as she told me, her favourite ballet. But perhaps her triumph in the _Dryad_ was even greater. It gave her an opportunity for displaying not only her marvellous technique, but also a perhaps half-unsuspected power of raising and expressing emotion. It afforded scope for the range of her feeling and revealed the actress beneath the dancer. In the first scene she comes out of the tree trunk in which the jealousy of Aphrodite has imprisoned her. Once a year she is allowed to roam abroad and delight in the sunlight and the flowers and the breeze. Her heart is on fire with joy at all the sights and sounds about her; but a still greater joy is in store for her--she meets a shepherd who falls in love with her. She relates her story to him in gestures which are as explicit as speech, and tells him he must go away and return at the end of ten years--she delightfully counts out the tale of years on the flowers she has gathered. If throughout the ten years he is faithful to her she will be released. The ten years pass, and on an autumn evening she comes out of her tree prison once again. Will he come? She is sure of it and dances for joy. Will he come? She searches for him eagerly through the meadows and down the glades. Will he come? Troubling doubts assail her, and her eyes begin to fill with despair. Will he come? Of course he will. She is still rippling and glowing with joy. She hears his voice. He is singing the old familiar love song. He is there, and on his arm is a human shepherdess to whom he is singing the song that once was only hers. The faithless lover and his new-found love pass through the meadow and down the glade, and then the Dryad, forsaken and forlorn, turns to the sheltering trunk in which she can hide herself and her despair. The fable is slender as a fairy tale, yet it gave Genée the chance of showing that she could pass from one emotion to another with the same rapidity, ease and expressiveness that mark her steps. She was by turns elfish, tender, sad, merry, passionate or despairing. In the first moments after escaping from the imprisoning tree, her dancing was full of that quality which so often inspires it--the spirit of the eternal child.