“‘I am going to Europe,’ he said. ‘I am going to London and Paris and Vienna and Rome, and all the other big cities. There will be a fine chance for you to see all those places and let Europeans hear you. They appreciate good singers. Now, little girl, do you want to come? If you do, you can.’”
“I talked it over with my mother and Madame Maretzek, and decided to go; and so, the next season, we were
IN EUROPE.
“We gave seventy-eight concerts in England and France. We opened the Trocadero at Paris, and mine was the first voice of any kind to sing there. This European tour of the American band was a great and successful venture. American musicians still recall the furore which it created, and the prestige which it gained at home. Mr. Gilmore was proud of his leading soloists. In Paris, where the great audiences went wild over my singing, he came to praise me personally in unmeasured terms. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you are going to be a great singer. You are going to be crowned in your own country yet. Mark my words: they are going to put diamonds on your brow!’ [Madame Nordica had good occasion to recall this, in 1898, many years after, when her enthusiastic New York admirers crowned her with a diamond tiara as a tribute of their admiration and appreciation.]
“It was at the time when Gilmore was at the height of his Paris engagement that his agent ran off with his funds and left the old bandmaster almost stranded. Despite his sincere trouble, he retained his imperturbable good nature, and came out of it successfully. He came to me, one morning, smiling good-naturedly, as usual. After greeting me and inquiring after my health, he said: ‘My dear child, you have saved some little money on this tour?’ I told him I had.
“‘Now, I would like to borrow that little from you.’
“I was very much surprised at the request, for he said nothing whatever of his loss. Still, he had been so uniformly kind and generous, and had won our confidence and regard so wholly, that I could not hesitate. I turned over nearly all I had, and he gathered it up and went away, simply thanking me. Of course, I heard of the defalcation later. It became generally known. Our salaries went right on, however, and in a few months the whole thing had been quite forgotten, when he came to me one morning with money ready in his hand.
“‘To pay you what I owe you, my dear,’ he said.
“‘Oh, yes!’ I said; ‘so and so much,’—naming the amount.
“‘Here it is,’ he said; and, handing me a roll of bills, he went away. Of course, I did not count it until a little later; but, when I did, I found just double the amount I had named, and no persuasion would ever induce him to accept a penny of it back.”