Kitty, meanwhile, had become a great favourite with the Wopples family, and they made a wonderful pet of her.  Of course, being in Rome, she did as the Romans did, and went on the stage as Miss Kathleen Wopples, being endowed with the family name for dramatic reasons.  The family were now on tour among the small towns of Victoria, and seemed to be well-known, as each member got a reception when he or she appeared on the stage.  Mr Theodore Wopples used to send his agent ahead to engage the theatre—­or more often a hall—­bill the town, and publish sensational little notices in the local papers.  Then when the family arrived Mr Wopples, who was really a gentleman and well-educated, called on all the principal people of the town and so impressed them with the high class character of the entertainment that he never failed to secure their patronage.  He also had a number of artful little schemes which he called ‘wheezes’, the most successful of these being a lecture on The Religious Teaching of Shakespeare’, which he invariably delivered on a Sunday afternoon in the theatre of any town he happened to be in, and not infrequently when requested occupied the pulpit and preached capital sermons.  By these means Mr Wopples kept up the reputation of the family, and the upper classes of all the towns invariably supported the show, while the lower classes came as a matter of course.  Mr Wopples, however, was equally as clever in providing a bill of fare as in inducing the public to come to the theatre, and the adaptability of the family was really wonderful.  One night they would play farcical comedy; then Hamlet, reduced to four acts by Mr Wopples, would follow on the second night; the next night burlesque would reign supreme; and when the curtain arose on the fourth night Mr Wopples and the star artistes would be acting melodrama, and throw one another off bridges and do strong starvation business with ragged clothes amid paper snowstorms.

Kitty turned out to be a perfect treasure, as her pretty face and charming voice soon made her a favourite, and when in burlesque she played Princess to Fanny Wopples’ Prince, there was sure to be a crowded house and lots of applause.  Kitty’s voice was clear and sweet as a lark’s, and her execution something wonderful, so Mr Wopples christened her the Australian Nightingale, and caused her to be so advertised in the papers.  Moreover, her dainty appearance, and a certain dash and abandon she had with her, carried the audience irresistibly away, and had Fanny Wopples not been a really good girl, she would have been jealous of the success achieved by the new-comer.  She, however, taught Kitty to dance breakdowns, and at Warrnambool they had a benefit, when ‘Faust, M.D.’ was produced, and Fanny sang her great success, ‘I’ve just had a row with mamma’, and Kitty sang the jewel song from ‘Faust’ in a manner worthy of Neilson, as the local critic—­who had never heard Neilson—­said the next day.  Altogether, Kitty fully repaid the good action of Mr Wopples by making his tour a wonderful success, and the family returned to Melbourne in high glee with full pockets.