There seemed to be no immediate prospect of returning to France and something must be done about Mademoiselle’s English education. The family made their home at the United States Hotel and during the intervals between the short concert trips a private tutor came to their rooms to instruct her young ladyship in the language of the country. Nothing had been done even in French and she found herself woefully ignorant for a ten year old girl. It made very little difference for she took up the matter with enthusiasm and learned to read in an incredibly short time. Within three months she could express herself with tolerable ease in English and learned to read almost anything that was put before her either in French or English. How it happened she could hardly explain. It must have been the intuitive grasping of a mind prematurely active and retentive. She could read music as easily as a Boston girl of her age could read the daily papers, and it did not seem to her in any sense difficult to understand the much more simple alphabet of spoken language. She had only one objection to her tutor. He helped her over the hard words and all that and was not cross but as she confided to her aunt, “he was very disagreeable—she didn’t like him for he chewed—and it wasn’t pleasant.”
At the same time such a demure puss, with such proper notions about manners was not above joining some of the other girls in grand romps in the corridors of the hotel, nor afraid to join them in the glorious mischief of changing all the boots put out at the doors of the rooms and then listen at the top of the stairs at the fine uproar caused by their pranks.
It was during this residence in Boston that Camilla was confirmed at Church and she passed the allotted weeks of preparation at the Convent of Notre Dame at Roxbury. Her father thought it a sad loss of time on account of her violin practice, but for Camilla it was a period of unalloyed happiness. She was the pet of the school, and her simple, childlike nature bloomed out freely in the quiet atmosphere of the place. Here for the first time she learned to use her needle. Pen, needles, pen-knife and scissors had been carefully kept out of her hands for fear of possible injury to her fingers and yet she learned to sew quite well in a very few lessons. It was merely a mechanical operation and it came to her in a flash. She astonished the good sisters with her feats of embroidery and fine sewing and they could not understand how such an one could learn so quickly. The manual skill of playing and the quick eye in reading music had probably much to do with it. The weeks at the convent were like a charming oasis in the dry and dusty plain of her public life and she came out of the school blooming with health and happiness.
On the 4th of April, 1853, the Germanias started out on an extended tour through the Western States and with them went Mademoiselle Camilla, her father and aunt. It was upon this trip that Camilla Urso’s face became familiar to the people of this country. She had visited nearly every important city and town in New England and now she played in every large city through the Northern and Western States. She went as far west as St. Louis and as far south as the Ohio. It was a stirring, eventful life. Traveling constantly, playing four or five times a week, meeting new friends every day, practicing steadily and growing in mind and stature she seemed to have found the desire of her young heart. Finally the trip ended at Rochester, New York, on the 11th of June, and the company separated. The Germanias went to Newport for their summer campaign and the Ursos returned to New York.
Madam Henrietta Sontag was at this time traveling in this country. She had given a series of very successful operatic performances in Boston and New York during the Winter and Spring, and proposed to make a concert tour through the West and South during the Fall and Winter. M. Urso while in New York received a letter from her agent inviting Camilla to join the troupe. Accordingly she set out with her father and met Madam Sontag’s party at Cincinnati. Aunt Caroline traveled with them as far as Louisville, Ky. Madam Sontag, who was greatly pleased with Camilla here offered to have a motherly eye over her and accordingly her aunt returned to New York and only M. Urso remained to be guide and helper to our young Mademoiselle.
For Camilla this trip was a season of great happiness. She was earning money rapidly, her mother in far away Paris could share in the golden store and her father was pleased and satisfied.
Madam Sontag became a second mother to Camilla and treated her with the utmost kindness. Every day Camilla must come to her room to practice and receive instructions in singing. Camilla’s instrument was the violin. She could sing with more than ordinary skill and in perfecting her phrasing and in improving her style in vocal music Madam Sontag insensibly improved her violin music. All of Camilla’s music was examined by the great singer and in those stray hours picked up between the demand of concerts and travel much of art and happiness was enjoyed.
Camilla was the favorite of the entire company. There was Pozzolini, the tenor, fat Badially, the bass, jolly Rocco the buffo singer and Alfred Jael the rising young pianist, merriest of them all. With each Camilla was a pet. Every one seemed ready to please the young girl and in their society life passed happily. Freed from anxiety and the excessive and wearisome practice her nature expanded and she began to show that sweet and amiable character that so brightens her maturer years.
Giving concerts at every city the party took their triumphant way down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans. The brilliant concerts, the strange people, the mighty river, the life on the palatial steamboats, the perpetual change of scene awoke Camilla’s fancy and imagination and developed her character rapidly. The publicity, the glare and the excitement only brought out her intellectual and artistic power. Most young people would have been upset and spoiled by vanity. Her young days in the orchestra at Nantes had accustomed her to public life, and the poverty and trial she had gone through served as good ballast to keep her steady when riding on the topmost wave of success.
The tour ended at New Orleans with even greater triumphs. Camilla appeared eighteen times in company with Madam Sontag and each concert was a perfect success in every sense.