penetrating glance and mobile mouth I remembered.

After chatting a short time and asking many questions about America,
where her experiences had been so pleasant, our talk was interrupted,
for a little, by a voice trial, which Madame had agreed to give. Many
young singers, from everywhere, were anxious to have expert judgment on
their progress or attainments, so Lehmann was often appealed to and gave
frequent auditions of this kind. The fee was considerable, but she never
kept a penny of it for herself; it all went to one of her favorite
charities. The young girl who on this day presented herself for the
ordeal was an American, who, it seemed, had not carried her studies very
far.

EXAMINING A PUPIL

Mme. Lehmann seated herself at the piano and asked for scales and
vocalizes. The young girl, either from fright or poor training, did not
make a very fortunate impression. She could not seem to bring out a
single pure steady tone, much less sing scales acceptably.

Madame with a resigned look finally asked for a song, which was given.
It was a little song of Franz, I remember. Then Lehmann wheeled around
on the stool and said to us, in German:

"The girl cannot sing--she has little or no voice to begin with, and has
not been rightly trained." Then to the young girl she said, kindly, in
English:

"My dear young lady, you have almost everything to learn about singing,
for as yet you cannot even sing one tone correctly; you cannot even
speak correctly. First of all you need physical development; you must
broaden your chest through breathing exercises; you are too thin
chested. You must become physically stronger if you ever hope to sing
acceptably. Then you must study diction and languages. This is
absolutely necessary for the singer. Above all you must know how to
pronounce and sing in your own language. So many do not think it
necessary to study their own language; they think they know that
already; but one's mother tongue requires study as well as any other
language.

"The trouble with American girls is they are always in a hurry. They are
not content to sit down quietly and study till they have developed
themselves into something before they ever think of coming to Europe.
They think if they can just come over here and sing for an artist, that
fact alone will give them prestige in America. But that gives them quite
the opposite reputation over here. American girls are too often looked
upon as superficial, beca