, and
seeing her keen interest, the mother continued her narrative, "It was my
mother who first noticed Jenny's voice," she said. "Some street
musicians had been playing in front of the house and the child must have
heard them and listened closely, for as soon as they were gone, she went
to the piano and played and sang the air she had heard. My mother in the
next room, hearing the music, thought Jenny's half sister was at the
piano, and called out, 'Amalia, is that you?' Jenny, evidently fearing
she had done something to be punished for, crept under the piano, where
my mother found her and pulling her out, exclaimed, 'Why, child, was
that _you_?'" Jenny said that it was, and as soon as Fru Lind came in,
the grandmother gleefully told her daughter the incident, adding, "Mark
my words, that child will bring you help," and the mother, struggling
so hard to make ends meet, devoutly hoped that the prediction might come
true.

Soon after that as her school did not pay, Fru Lind became a governess,
and the grandmother went to the Widows' Home, taking Jenny with her. The
child, who was too young to realise what such a step meant, was as happy
as could be there; as she said afterwards, "I sang with every step I
took, and with every jump my feet made," and when she was not jumping or
stepping, she sat in the window singing to her big pet pussy cat. All
this the mother told Mademoiselle Lundberg, who again begged that Jenny
at least be taught to sing correctly, to which Fru Lind agreed, and the
actress at once wrote a letter of introduction to Herr Croelius, the
court Secretary, and singing master at the Royal Theatre, and gave it to
Fru Lind. Off went mother and daughter to present it, but when they
reached the Opera House and were about to mount its steps, Fru Lind
shook her head, and turned back--she could not launch her child on any
such career.

But here Jenny became insistent, for from all the conversation she had
heard between her mother and the actress, she had gathered that mounting
those steps would mean something new and interesting, and at last she
had her way. They sought and found the studio of Croelius, and Jenny
sang for him a bit from one of Winter's operas, and the teacher, deeply
moved by the purity and strength of the child's voice, at once set a
date for her first lesson with him.

After only a few lessons, Croelius became so proud of his pupil that he
took her to sing for Count Puecke, manager of the Cour