One performance of the first-named of these operas I remember still with considerable amusement on account of an odd incident...When in the evening I was crossing the stage to go to the conductor's desk the call-boy ran after me shouting, ' Mr. Halle, we have forgotten the child!' This very child has to be seen sitting at the window when the curtain goes up, and in ten minutes I had to commence the overture. ' Go, fetch one quick,' was my answer...In the first scene where the Polish Count (Santley) takes leave of his daughter before his departure from home, the little girl is brought to him and he has to sing a touching and rather lengthy farewell ballad. So the child came down on to the stage, but the moment she saw the foot- lights and the public behind she yelled with fright, screaming at the top of her voice. Santley, however, was equal to the occasion. He knelt down, threw his large cloak round the girl, took her head under his arm and kept it in chancery, all the time singing his ballad with the utmost pathos, unmindful of the kicking feet and struggles going on under the cloak, hardly perceived by the public. << less