er girlish figure looked almost too slight for the task, as she
joyfully accepted the responsibility.

At once she began rehearsing, and one day when she put forth every
effort to express emotion in the way her dramatic teacher wished, the
effort was met with silence.

"Am I then so incapable," she thought. Then glancing at her teacher she
saw tears in the eyes of the older woman, who exclaimed:

"My child, I have nothing to teach you--do as nature tells you,"--and
Jenny knew that her supreme effort had not been wasted.

It is said that she studied the part of Agatha with all the intensity of
her enthusiastic nature and at the last rehearsal sang with such intense
feeling and fire that the orchestra, to a man, laid down their
instruments and applauded loudly. The next day, before the performance,
she was very nervous and worried, but the moment she appeared on the
stage every bit of apprehension vanished, and as Fredrika Bremer said,
"She was fresh, bright and serene as a morning in May, peculiarly
graceful and lovely in her whole appearance. She seemed to move, speak
and sing without effort or art. Her singing was distinguished especially
by its purity and the power of soul which seemed to swell in her tones."
Jenny herself said afterwards, "I got up that morning one creature. I
went to bed another creature. I had found my power."

During her entire after life she kept that anniversary, the seventh of
March, in grateful remembrance of her triumph, as a sort of second
birthday.

For the next year and a half she worked indefatigably, and her success
as an operatic singer seemed assured; she became the star of the
Stockholm opera, as well as the most popular singer in Sweden, and was
called the "Swedish Nightingale."

After singing without rest for months, she was able to take a short
holiday in the summer of 1839, and Fru Lind, who accompanied her, wrote
back to her husband, "Our Jenny recruits herself daily, now in the
hay-stacks, now on the sea, or in the swing, in perfect tranquillity,
while the town people are said to be longing for her concert, and
greatly wondering when it will come off. Once or twice she has been
singing the divine air of Isabella from _Robert le Diable_. Nearly
everybody was crying. One lady actually went into hysterics from sheer
rapture. Yes, she captivates all, all! It is a great happiness to be a
mother under such conditions!"

Poor Fru Lind was at last receiving her compensation for