and finally it was arranged that she should take a leading part in
the Covent Garden Opera in a few weeks.

So she went to London to learn.

London and singing lessons were
better than the City of the Midlands and those terrible machines.
Yet still Mary Jane was not free to go and live as she liked by the
edge of the marshlands, and she was still determined to be rid of
her soul, but could find no one that had not a soul of their own.

One day she was told that the English people would not listen to her
as Miss Rush, and was asked what more suitable name she would like
to be called by.

'I would like to be called Terrible North Wind,' said Mary Jane, 'or
Song of the Rushes.'

When she was told that this was impossible and Signorina Maria
Russiano was suggested, she acquiesced at once, as she had
acquiesced when they took her away from her curate; she
knew nothing of the ways of humans.

At last the day of the Opera
came round, and it was a cold day of the winter.

And Signorina Russiano appeared on the stage before a crowded house.

And Signorina Russiano sang.