"MY DEAR COUSIN ETHAN,--I have never written to you but once since I was a child. I have never told you anything except that I wished you 'A Merry Christmas,' or was glad you were coming--which you know you never did. I don't think you ever will, and, besides, I can't wait for you. It may seem funny that, not knowing you any better, I should write you now about a matter of the deepest importance, but you are my cousin, and, after my father, you are my nearest kinsman, and I am in need of help. I want to be a singer--not a mere parlor warbler, but a Great Singer. I have a tremendous voice. I am obliged to tell you this, since you can't hear it. I practise every day by myself, though I can't use the piano much on account of grandma. I have always led the singing at school; all the rest, nearly three hundred girls, follow. But I have never been able properly to study music. I was going to run away and be a chorus girl till I could earn enough to study for grand opera, but my father has induced me to wait--just a little. He is going to take me East in the fall, and says I may 'Look over the field.' He says, too, it will give me an opportunity of seeing how difficult it is to do what I mean to do. But I don't think it's a good plan to take all that trouble (his cough is very bad) just to show me the thing is difficult. What I want to be shown is the way--no matter how hard--that it may be done. The trouble is, that my dear father, who knows many great scientists, and a few politicians, doesn't know any famous singers, and nobody about here does, and nobody seems to know any one who ever _did_ know an opera-singer, much less a manager. My grandmother has often told me that you have artistic tastes, and now comes the _Pall Mall_ of London with your 'Song for Sylvia.' I've made up five tunes to it, and I think you would like them, since, unlike my family, _you_ are artistic. I've been thinking a person like you must have great opportunities. You probably know singers, managers, musicians, and all sorts of delightful people. I wonder if you would help me to find out how a girl with a very exceptional voice can get it heard and get it trained? I know there are people who do these things, and when they discover a great voice they make their fortunes; so it is not a favor in the end on the part of the manager. But if you showed me the way, and could lend me five hundred dollars, it would always be a favor from you, and I would be grateful to you for ever and ever. If you will send me a letter of introduction to a manager, I think that would be best--that and five hundred dollars--and perhaps you would be so very kind as to send me the lives of Jenny Lind and Patti. It would help me to know what steps they took.