By the time this interview appears in print, Madame Melba will be in the thick of her fifth visit to the United States. Her previous operatic tours of the American Continent have been full of varied and interesting experiences. One of the most characteristic "Melba stories" that I know dates from her last tour but one. It was at St. Louis, where, thanks to a late train, the _diva_ and her company arrived only a very little time before the hour fixed for the commencement. There was, in fact, only just time for the artists to make for their respective dressing-rooms. But Melba, looking down from a coign of vantage into the orchestra, observed, to her dismay and annoyance, that her musicians were in morning dress. She promptly sent for the _chef d'orchestre_. The poor man expostulated, remonstrated; they had but a few minutes before come off the cars; there was no time, etc. But Melba was firm. "If the gentlemen of my orchestra do not choose to appear in evening dress, I shall refuse to go on the stage. I owe a duty to the public as well as to myself." This inexorable mandate had its effect, and the musicians were soon seen filing out of the orchestra, to return a few minutes later, suitably clad in the evening garb of comparative civilization. Then the curtain rose and the opera commenced--only a very little behind time. The incident did not, however, pass unrecognised. The critics of the Press had seen the musicians disappear and re-appear, and correctly surmising the cause of their "quick change," the result was a series of graceful little articles in the St. Louis papers complimenting the popular favourite upon her sense of the fitness of things. [Illustration: MADAME MELBA AS JULIETTE, 1892. _From a Photo. by Dupont, Brussels._] An incident without precedent on the concert stage marked the concert which Melba gave at the Albert Hall, on November 2nd, to signalize her departure for her present trans-Atlantic tour. Of the three principal performers--_i.e._, Madame Melba herself, Miss Ada Crossley, the contralto, and Mr. Johann Kruse, the solo violinist--all were not only Australians, but Victorians by birth. [Illustration: MADAME MELBA AS OPHÉLIE, 1895 _From a Photo. by Reutlinger, Paris._] [Illustration: MADAME MELBA, 1893. _From a Photo. by Renque et Cie, Paris._]