of
her friends she often met an aged widow, poor and unhappy, and strongly
desired to assist her; but the position and character of the lady
required delicate management. "Madame," she said at last, "I know that
your son makes very pretty verses." "Yes, madame, he sometimes amuses
himself in that way. But he is so young!" "No matter. Do you know that
I could propose a little partnership affair? Troupenas [the music
publisher] has asked me for a new set of romances. I have no words
ready. If your son will give them to me, we could share the profits."
Mme. Malibran received the verses, and gave in exchange six hundred
francs. The romances were never finished.

She performed all such acts of charity with so much refined delicacy,
such true generosity, that the kindness was doubled. Thus, at the end
of this season, a young female chorister, engaged for the opening of the
King's Theatre, found herself unable to quit Paris for want of funds.
Mme. Malibran promised to sing at a concert which some of the leading
vocalists gave for her benefit. The name of Malibran of course drew a
crowd, and the room was filled; but she did not appear, and at last they
were obliged to commence the concert. The entertainment was half over
when she came, and approached the young girl, saying to her in a low
voice: "I am a little late, my dear, but the public will lose nothing,
for I will sing all the pieces announced. In addition, as I promised you
all my evening, I will keep my word. I went to sing in a concert at the
house of the Duc d'Orleans, where I received three hundred francs. They
belong to you. Take them."

III.

In April of the same year during which Mme. Malibran had established
herself so firmly in the admiration of the Parisian world, she accepted
an engagement for the summer months with La-porte of the King's Theatre
in London. She made her _debut_ in the character of _Desdemona_, a part
which had already been firmly fixed in the notions of the musical public
by the two differing conceptions of Pasta and Sontag. The opera had been
originally written for Mme. Colbran, Rossini's wife, and when it was
revived for Pasta that great lyric tragedienne had embodied in it a
grand, stormy, passionate style, suited to the _genre_ of her genius.
Mme. Sontag, on the other hand, fashioned her impersonation from the
side of delicate sentiment and tenderness, and Malibran had a difficult
task in shaping the conception after an ideal which sho