the evening, we all went to hear her, being every way much interested in her success.  John and Henry went into the front of the house; my mother, Dr. Moore (the Rev. Dr. Moore, a great friend of my father and mother’s), and myself, went up to our own box.  The house was crammed, the pit one black, crowded mass.  Poor child!  I turned as cold as ice as the symphony of “Fair Aurora” (the opera was “Artaxerxes”) began, and she came forward with Mr. Wilson.  The bravos, the clapping, the noise, the great sound of popular excitement overpowering in all its manifestations; and the contrast between the sense of power conveyed by the acclamations of a great concourse of people, and the weakness of the individual object of that demonstration, gave me the strangest sensation when I remembered my own experience, which I had not seen.  When I saw the thousands of eyes of that crowded pitful of men, and heard their stormy acclamations, and then looked at the fragile, helpless, pretty young creature standing before them trembling with terror, and all woman’s fear and shame in such an unnatural position, I more than ever marveled how I, or any woman, could ever have ventured on so terrible a trial, or survived the venture.  It seemed to me as if the mere gaze of all that multitude must melt the slight figure away like a wreath of vapor in the sun, or shrivel it up like a scrap of silver paper before a blazing fire.  It made poor Dr. Moore and myself both cry, but there was a deal more sympathy in my tears than in his; for I had known the dizzy terror of that moment, had felt the ground slide from under my feet and the whole air become a sea of fiery rings before my swimming eyes.  Besides my fellow-feeling for her actual agony, I had one for what her after trials may be, and I hoped for her that she might be able to see the truth of all things in the midst of all things false; and then, if she takes pleasure in her gilded toys, she will not have too bitter a heartache when they are broken.  She sang well, and soon recovered from her fright, which, even from the first, did not affect her voice.  She is rather pretty, but does not walk or move gracefully; she was well dressed, all but her hair, which was dressed in the present frizzy French fashion, and looked ridiculous for Mandane.  Her singing was good, of a good style; I do not mean only that she sang “Fly, soft ideas, fly,” and “Monster away!” and “The Soldier Tired,” brilliantly, because they do not test the best singing, but the soave sostenuto of her “If e’er the cruel tyrant love,” and “Let not rage thy bosom firing,” were specimens of the best and most difficult school of singing.  They were flowing, smooth, soft, and sweet, without trick or device of mere florid ornamentation, and were as intrinsically good in her execution as they are admirable in that peculiar style of composition.  Her shake is not genuine, and some of her rapid descending scales want finish and accuracy; her use of her arms and her gestures were very pretty and graceful,