"He was very delighted, and turned to me and said, 'We have an opening in the choir at Trinity College: will you come and fill the post until there is a trial for it?' I was in the seventh heaven; the position was worth £120 per year; it realized all my hopes. I went to Cambridge; the music I had to sing--I was a good reader--came like A, B, C to me. I seemed to please the Fellows. After I had been there three months they thought there ought to be a trial for the post. There were then two tenor vacancies, as Mr. Kerr Gedge was leaving to fill an important position in London. How well I remember the morning of the trial. The trial was fixed for ten o'clock. However, I got up at four, as I was too excited to sleep, told the landlady to have a thick steak ready for me at eight, and went for a long walk. I shall never forget that four hours' stroll; I remembered that there were seven or eight other competitors. I felt terribly anxious and nervous, but by the time I got back again to my lodgings and settled down to my breakfast, I had determined to go in and win. I felt on that morning just the same as I do now when about to fulfil any engagement I may have on hand: anxious, fearfully anxious. [Illustration: MR. LLOYD'S MOTHER. _From a Photo by W. & D. Downey._] "At that trial I sang 'If with all your hearts,' from 'Elijah,' and read some music given to us, and came out first. "At Cambridge I met the lady who afterwards became my wife. It was at the opera. 'Faust' was the work, with Blanche Cole as _Marguerite_. Her future husband, Sydney Naylor, conducted, and, by-the-bye, he was a Temple boy with me. We were almost engaged from that night, and I should like to say that, although Mrs. Lloyd is not a musician, from that day to this she has influenced my life. It was her wish that I should not sing in opera. And I have never regretted not doing so. Indeed, I have only made one appearance in costume in my life--it was at a private house at Hampstead. Here is a portrait of myself in the character. My part necessitated me carrying on certain papers, which in my excitement I left outside. I was asked for them; I felt in my pocket; pocket was empty. 'Dear me!' I said, 'I must have dropped them on the stairs as I came up'; so I made my exit and brought them back." Still, Mr. Lloyd's dramatic instincts must have been of a very high order--for the late Carl Rosa, who chanced to be present, immediately offered him an engagement. Later on Carl Rosa tried his utmost to induce him to sing in "Tannhauser," when the impresario was producing this work at Her Majesty's Theatre, saying at the same time, "I vill gif you a blank cheque to fill up!" This offer was again refused, and Rosa always would have it that the great tenor had missed his chance of going on the stage!