After nearly a year under Garcia’s tuition she was summoned home.  The Swedish musician who brought her the order to return to her duties at the Stockholm Court Theatre, from which she had been absent by permission, was a friend of Meyerbeer, and through him Jenny Lind was introduced to the composer.  Meyerbeer, unlike Garcia, promptly recognized in her voice “one of the finest pearls in the world’s chaplet of song,” and was determined to hear her under conditions which would fully test the power and quality of so delicious an organ.  He arranged a full orchestral rehearsal, and Jenny Lind sang in the salon of the Grand Opera the three great scenes from “Robert le Diable,” “Norma,” and “Der Freischutz.”  The experiment vindicated Meyerbeer’s judgment, and Jenny Lind could then and there have signed a contract with the manager, whom Meyerbeer had taken care to have present, had it not been for the spiteful opposition of a distinguished prima donna, who had an undue influence over the managerial mind.

The young singer returned to Stockholm a new being, assured of her powers, self-centered in her ambition, and with a right to expect a successful career for herself.  Her preparation had been accompanied with much travail of spirit, disappointment, and suffering, but the harvest was now ripening for the reaper.  The people of Stockholm, though they had let her depart with indifference, received her back right cordially, and, when she made her first reappearance as Alice, in “Robert le Diable,” the welcome had all the fury of a great popular excitement.  Her voice had gained remarkable flexibility and power, the quality of it was of a bell-like richness, purity, and clearness; her execution was admirable, and her dramatic power excellent.  The good people of Stockholm discovered that they had been entertaining an angel unawares.  Though Jenny Lind was but little known out of Sweden, she soon received an offer from the Copenhagen opera, but she dreaded to accept the offer of the Danish manager.  “I have never made my appearance out of Sweden,” she observed; “everybody in mv native land is so affectionate and kind to me, and if I made my appearance in Copenhagen and should be hissed!  I dare not venture on it!” However, the temptations held out to her, and the entreaties of Burnonville, the ballet-master of Copenhagen, who had married a Swedish friend of Jenny Lind’s, at last prevailed over the nervous apprehensions of the young singer, and Jenny made her first appearance in Copenhagen as Alice, in “Robert le Diable.”  “It was like a new revelation in the realms of art,” says Andersen ("Story of my Life"); “the youthful, fresh voice forced itself into every heart; here reigned truth and nature, and everything was full of meaning and intelligence.  At one concert she sang her Swedish songs.  There was something so peculiar in this, so bewitching, people thought nothing about the concert-room; the popular melodies uttered by a