About this time my attention was drawn by my friend Zimelli, the manager of the theatre at Malta, to a most charming young soprano, who he assured me was destined to take a very high rank; and about the same time I received a letter from a regular subscriber to the house, a distinguished officer, pointing out the excellence of this young lady. I at once opened negotiations which ultimately led to favourable results. Colonel McCray, I may add, had written to me from Florence on the same subject. The name of the young singer was Emma Albani; and having, as I thought, secured her services--positively promised in a letter written to me by the lady--I found myself deprived of them by Mr. Gye; who I find, now that I look back on the past, paid me an attention of this kind--sometimes greater, sometimes less--regularly every year. On her arrival Mdlle. Albani was to sign the contract; and as soon as she got to London she, with perfect good faith, drove to what she believed to be my theatre. She had told the cab-man to take her to the manager's office at the Italian Opera. She was conveyed to the Royal Italian Opera, and, sending in her card to Mr. Gye, who had doubtless heard of her, was at once received. On Mdlle. Albani's saying that she had come to sign the contract which I had offered her, Mr. Gye, knowing that I never made engagements but with artists of merit, gave her at once the agreement she desired. To do Mr. Gye justice I must here mention that after the contract had been signed he, in the frankest manner, avowed to Mdlle. Albani that he was not Mr. Mapleson, for whom she had hitherto mistaken him. He explained to her that there was a manager named Mapleson who rented an establishment somewhere round the corner where operas and other things were from time to time played; but _the_ opera, the permanent institution known as such, was the one he had the honour of directing. If, he concluded, Mdlle. Albani was sorry to have dealt with him she might still consider herself free, and he would at once tear up the contract. Mdlle. Albani, however, was so impressed by the emphatic manner in which Mr. Gye dwelt on the superiority of his theatre to mine that she declared herself satisfied, and kept to the contract she had signed. Colonel McCray called on me soon afterwards to beg that out of consideration for the lady I would give up the letter in which she declared herself ready to sign with me. I assured him that I had no intention of making any legal use of it, but that I should like to keep it as a souvenir of the charming vocalist who had at one time shown herself willing to be introduced to the London public under my auspices.