And she does sing, with that voice so matchless in its perfect purity,
that even the disappointed critic grows uneasy as he tries in vain to
find some reasonable fault with it. She ceases, and amid wild cheers
from the paying part of the audience, silent approval from the
deadheads, and shouts of "Hooroo!" and "Begorra!" from the Scandinavian
Society, MAX'S flowers are brought in solemn procession up the aisle,
and laid at the feet of the Improved Nightingale.

CRITIC. "Those flowers will just be taken out of the back door, and
brought in again to be used the second time. There's a hand-cart waiting
for them now, at the Fifteenth Street entrance."

SIX PRIME DONNE, _(who were not asked to sing at the NILSSON concerts.)_
"Well, did you ever hear 'Angels Ever Bright' sung in a more atrocious
style? If that is NILSSON's idea of expression, the sooner she leaves
the stage to artists, the better."

CYNICAL OLD MUSICIAN. "Bah! NILSSON infuses religious sentiment into her
singing, and these envious creatures don't know what religious sentiment
is, so they think she is all wrong. If she had sung HANDEL with a smile,
and a coquettish tossing of her head, they would still have hated her,
but they would not have ventured to call her "inartistic.""

YOUNG MAN. "Darling! I had rather hear your sweet voice, than listen to
NILSSON or a choir of angels for the rest of my--"

YOUNG LADY. "CHARLES, you will drive me wild, with your intolerable
spooniness. I'll never come out with you again. See how the SMITH girls
are looking at you."