Billington, who had been her music-master, and, as her father was
bitterly opposed to the connection, the enamored couple eloped, and were
married at Lambeth Church with great secrecy.

They soon found themselves at their wits' end. With no money, and
without the established reputation which commands the attention of
managers, Mrs. Billington found that in taking a husband she had assumed
a fresh responsibility. Finally she secured an engagement at the Smock
Alley Theatre in Dublin, when she appeared in Gluck's opera of "Orpheus
and Eurydice," with the well-known tenor Tenducci, whose exquisite
singing of the air, "Water parted from the Sea," in the opera of
"Artaxerxes," had chiefly contributed to his celebrity. It was _à
propos_ of this that the well-known Irish street-song of the day was
composed:

"Tenducci was a piper's son,
And he was in love when he was young;
And all the tunes that he could play
Was 'Water parted from the Say.'"

For about a year the young singer played provincial engagements, but it
was good training for her. Her powers were becoming matured, and she was
learning self-reliance in the bitter school of experience, which more
and more assured her of coming triumph. At last she persuaded Lewis, the
manager of Covent Garden, to give her a metropolitan hearing. Though her
voice at this time had not attained the volume and power of after-years,
its qualities were exceptional. Its compass was in the upper notes
extraordinary, though in the lower register rather limited. She was well
aware of this defect, and tried to remedy it by substituting one octave
for another; a license which passed unnoticed by the undiscriminating