applause. The rioters kept at the back of the boxes.

She now went to London and created a great impression in "Lakme," at the
Gaiety Theatre.

An incident of her early career in Paris carried with it a certain
amount of romance. A young Frenchman bribed her cabman to take her to a
certain restaurant after the opera, where he and his friends were
waiting to invite her to supper. Through the vigilance of her mother the
plan was frustrated, but the story of the incident reached America, and
came to the ears of a young man who had been an early playmate of the
prima donna, and whose affection had grown stronger as time passed on.
He went over to Paris, and challenged the young Frenchman to mortal
combat. The Frenchman acknowledged the irreproachable character of Mlle.
Van Zandt, but expressed himself as being quite at the service of the
gentleman for any amount of fighting. Details of the fight are not on
file.

Miss Van Zandt was born in Texas, where her father owned a ranch, and
her childhood was spent in the enjoyment of the free life of the plains.
Her family later removed to New York, and then to London. She met
Adelina Patti, who was so pleased with her voice that she gave her every
encouragement, and is said to have called her her successor. But there
have been so many successors of Patti!

A few years after Miss Van Zandt's debut, an amusing rivalry sprang up
between her and another young American soprano, Emma Nevada. So bitter
was the hostility, that one evening, when Miss Van Zandt was taken ill
suddenly during the performance, her friends went so far as to declare
that she had been drugged by the adherents of Miss Nevada. Such little
quarrels are frequent among prima donnas, and are doubtless largely
engineered by the newspapers, whose appetite for the sensational is
enormous.

On April 27, 1898, at the mayoralty of the Champs Elysees district in
Paris, Marie Van Zandt was married to Petrovitch de Tcherinoff, a
Russian state councillor, and professor at the Imperial Academy of
Moscow, after which it was announced that she would retire from the
stage.

CHAPTER VII.

PRIMA DONNAS OF THE EIGHTIES.

To every opera-goer of the past ten years the name of Nordica has become
almost as familiar as that of Patti was during the last generation.
Nordica, or rather, Giglia Nordica, was the name assumed by Lillian
Norton when she made her debut on the operatic stage. She was born in
Farmington, Me., and a