the hardships
of her life!

But Jenny's trials were not yet over. Her voice, though pure and clear,
was wanting in flexibility, and she could not easily hold a tone or sing
even a slight cadence. These defects she worked constantly to overcome,
but saw that she was not thrilling her audiences as before, and yet she
was conscious of possessing a God-given power of which she must make the
most. She felt sure that she needed teaching of a kind not to be gained
in Sweden. In Paris was Manuel Garcia, the greatest singing teacher in
the world, and to him she felt she must now go. But this could only be
achieved by her own effort, as the trip and the teaching would
necessitate spending a large sum of money.

At once, before her star had grown any less dim, the plucky girl
persuaded her father to go with her on a concert tour of cities in
Norway and Sweden. By this she earned the necessary amount, but the trip
was very exhausting, including as it did, so much travelling, in all
kinds of weather, and after singing twenty-three times in _Lucia_,
fourteen times in _Robert le Diable_, nine times in _Freischutz_, seven
times in _Norma_, not to mention other plays and concerts, also
appearing for the four hundred and forty-seventh time at the Royal
Theatre, where she had first played in the _Polish Mine_, as a child of
ten, she was pretty well tired out. Two weeks later, however, she went
to Paris and called on the great singing teacher, Signor Garcia. The
opera she sang was _Lucia_, and she broke down before she was half way
through the part, to her intense mortification. The great teacher,
approaching the trembling girl, put a hand on her shoulder, saying
brusquely, "It would be useless to teach you, Mademoiselle. You have no
voice left. You are worn out. I advise you not to sing a note for six
months. At the end of that time come to me and I will see what I can do
for you."

Poor Jenny! The words were a death knell to her, and she said afterwards
that what she suffered in that moment was beyond all the other agony of
her life.

But it was not like her to give way even under such a blow as this.
Leaving the great teacher she went to a quiet spot and spent the six
months of enforced rest studying French, and at the end of the time went
back to Garcia, who to her unspeakable relief said at once, "It is
better, far better! I have now something to work on. I will give you two
lessons a week!"

In rapture Jenny flew home that da