elic bequeathed to the New
World by De Soto and his cavaliers.

JENNY LIND:

The Swedish Nightingale

IN the City of Stockholm there is one street leading up to the Church of
St. Jacob, on which in years gone by there was a constant succession of
pedestrians and vehicles. In fact in 1830, it was one of the most lively
streets in the city, and often a passer would stop to look up at a
window where every day a little girl sat, holding a big cat decorated
with a blue ribbon. To this pet the child sang constantly, sang bits of
operas or popular airs which she had heard, and the childish voice was
so clear and sweet and true even in very high notes, that it attracted
quite a crowd of listeners, and it became a regular habit with many
persons to pause for a moment and listen to the song poured out for the
benefit of pussy with the blue bow!

Among those who saw the pretty picture and heard the song was the maid
of a Mademoiselle Lundberg, a dancer at the Royal Opera House. She was
told such an ecstatic story of the child's beautiful voice, that she
became deeply interested, and having found out that the little singer's
name was Jenny Lind wrote a note asking the child's mother, Fru Lind, to
bring Jenny to her home that she might hear her sing.

Fru Lind acceded to the request and when she took Jenny to pay the
promised visit, and the child's voice had been tried, Mademoiselle
Lundberg clasped her hands in rapture, exclaiming:

"She is a genius. You must have her educated for the stage."

The words meant nothing to Jenny, but they struck terror to the heart of
the mother, to whose old-fashioned notions the stage was another name
for ruin. In vain the actress pleaded that it would be a sin to allow
such talent to be wasted,--still Fru Lind shook her head, and the
actress diplomatically argued no more, but by eager questions learned
the history of Jenny's family.

Being the wife of an amiable and good-natured man who was unable to
support his family, Fru Lind was obliged to keep a small school in
Stockholm to eke out expenses, and as she had not time to take care of
Jenny as well as teach, the child had for three years been boarded out
with a church organist's family not far from the city, but had finally
been brought back, to become a pupil in her mother's school, being cared
for mainly by her grandmother, to whom Jenny was devotedly attached. All
this Mademoiselle Lundberg learned from answers to her questions