James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

[264] meet him the next day in New York. The next day I started for that city. On arriving at Princeton we met the cars, and, purchasing the morning papers I was overwhelmed with surprise and dismay to find in them a full account of my engagement with Jenny. However, this premature announcement could not be recalled, and I put the best face upon the matter. Being anxious to learn how this communication would strike the public mind, I informed the gentlemanly conductor (whom I well knew) that I had made an engagement with Jenny Lind, and that she would surely visit this country in the following August.

“Jenny Lind! Is she a dancer?” asked the conductor.

I informed the conductor who and what she was, but his question had chilled me as if his words were ice! Really, thought I, if this is all that a man in the capacity of a railroad conductor between Philadelphia and New York knows of the greatest songstress in the world, I am not sure that six months will be too long a time for me to occupy in enlightening the entire public in regard to her merits.

How well Mr. Barnum employed that time, most of us remember. Long before the great songstress landed all America was on the qui vive. On Sunday, September 1, 1850, at twelve o'clock, the steamer “Atlantic,” with Jenny Lind on board, came to opposite the quarantine ground, and Mr. Barnum, who had been on the island since the evening before, was soon on board.

“But where did you hear me sing?” Jenny Lind asked him, as soon as the first compliments had been exchanged.

“I never had the pleasure of hearing you before in my life,” said the manager.

“How is it possible,” she rejoined, “that you dared risk so much money on a person you never heard sin?”

“I risked it on your reputation,” he replied, “which in ”