sold very few tickets, and the rooms (in the Salle
Hera) were thinly occupied. She, however, had not forgotten her promise;
at the very moment when the matinee was commencing she arrived, in time
to redeem her word and reward those who had attended, but too late to be
of any service to the veteran. Galli was in despair, and was buried
in reflections neither exhilarating nor profitable, when, some minutes
after the concert, the comely face and portly figure of Alboni appeared
at the door of his room. "How much are the expenses of your
concert?" she kindly inquired. "_Mia cara_," dolorously responded the
beneficiaire, "_cinque centifranci_ [five hundred francs]." "Well,
then, to repair the loss that I may have caused you," said the generous
cantatrice, "here is a banknote for a thousand francs. Do me the favor
to accept it." This was only one of the many kind actions she performed.

Mlle. Alboni's Paris engagement, in the spring of 1850, was marked by a
daring step on her part, which excited much curiosity at the time,
and might easily have ended in a most humiliating reverse, though its
outcome proved fortunate, that undertaking being the _role_ of _Fides_
in "Le Prophete," which had become so completely identified with the
name of Viardot. It was owing as much, perhaps, to the insistance of the
managers of the Grand Opera as to the deliberate choice of the singer
that this experiment was attempted. Meyerbeer perhaps smiled in his
sleeve at the project, but he interposed no objection, and indeed went
behind the scenes to congratulate her on her success during the night of
the first performance. Alboni's achievement was gratifying to her pride,
but it need not be said that her interpretation of _Fides_ was
radically different from that of Mme. Viardot, which was a grand
tragic conception, akin to those created by the genius of Pasta and
Schroeder-Devrient. The music of "Le Prophete" had never been well fitted
to Viardot's voice, and it was in this better adaptation of Alboni to
the vocal score that it may be fancied her success, such as it was,
found its root. It was significant that the critics refrained from
enlarging on the dramatic quality of the performance. Mlle. Alboni
continued her grasp of this varied range of lyric character during her
seasons in France, Spain, and England for several years, now assuming
_Fides_, now _Amino_, in "Sonnambula," now _Leonora_ in "Favorita,"
and never failing, however the critics mig