The managers, who had haggled over the terms of thirteen pounds a week for her first brief engagement of twelve nights, were glad to give her a thousand pounds for the rest of the season.  For her second part she chose Polly Peachum in “The Beggars’ Opera,” to show her detractors that she could sing simple English ballad-music with no less taste and effect than the brilliant and ornate style with which she first took the town by storm.  Mara, the great German singer, who until then had no rival, was distracted with rage and jealousy, which the sweet-tempered Billington treated with a careless smile.  Though her success had been so brilliant, she relaxed no effort in self-improvement, and studied assiduously both vocalism and the piano.  Indeed, Salomon, Haydn’s impressario, said of her with enthusiasm, “Sar, she sing equally well wid her troat and her fingers.”  At the close of this season, which was the opening of a great career, Mrs. Billington visited Paris, where she placed herself under the instruction of the composer Sacchini, who greatly aided her by his happy suggestions.  To him she confesses herself to have been most indebted for what one of her admirers called “that pointed expression, neatness of execution, and nameless grace by which her performance was so happily distinguished.”

Kelly, the Irish actor and singer, who made her acquaintance about this time, said he thought her an angel of beauty and the St. Cecilia of song.  Her loveliness enchanted even more by the sweetness and amiability of its expression than by symmetry of feature, and everywhere she was the idol of an adoring public.  Even her rivals, embittered by professional jealousy, soon melted in the sunshine of her sweet temper.  An amusing example of professional rivalry is related by John Bernard in his “Reminiscences,” where Miss George, afterward Lady Oldmixon, managed to cloud the favorite’s success by a cunning musical trick.  “Mrs. Billington, who was engaged on very high terms for a limited number of nights, made her first appearance on the Dublin stage in the character of Polly in ‘The Beggars’ Opera,’ surrounded by her halo of popularity.  She was received with acclamations, and sang her songs delightfully; particularly ‘Cease your Funning,’ which was tumultuously encored.  Miss George, who performed the part of Lucy (an up-hill singing part), perceiving that she had little chance of dividing the applause with the great magnet of the night, had recourse to the following stratagem:  When the dialogue duet in the second act, ’Why, how now, Madam Flirt?’ came on, Mrs. Billing-ton having given her verse with exquisite sweetness, Miss George, setting propriety at defiance, sang the whole of her verse an octave higher, her tones having the effect of the high notes of a sweet and brilliant flute.  The audience, taken by surprise, bestowed on her such loud applause as almost shook the walls of the theatre, and a unanimous encore was the result.”