father and daughter. Such was the hostility of feeling between the two,
that Maria almost feared for her life. The following incident is an
expressive comment on the condition of her mind at this time: One
evening she was playing _Des-demona_ to her father's _Othello_, in
Rossini's opera. At the moment when _Othello_ approaches, his eyes
sparkling with rage, to stab _Desdemona_, Maria perceived that her
father's dagger was not a stage sham, but a genuine weapon. Frantic with
terror, she screamed "Papa, papa, for the love of God, do not kill me!"
Her terrors were groundless, for the substitution of the real for a
theatrical dagger was a mere accident. The audience knew no difference,
as they supposed Maria's Spanish exclamation to be good operatic
Italian, and they applauded at the fine dramatic point made by the young
artist!

At last the importunate suitor overcame Gar-cia's opposition by agreeing
to give him a hundred thousand francs in payment for the loss of his
daughter's services, and the sacrifice of the young and beautiful singer
was consummated on March 23, 1826. A few weeks later Malibran was a
bankrupt and imprisoned for debt, and his bride discovered how she had
been cheated and outraged by a cunning scoundrel, who had calculated
on saving himself from poverty by dependence on the stage-earnings of
a brilliant wife. The enraged Garcia, always a man of unbridled temper,
was only prevented from transforming one of those scenes of mimic
tragedy with which he was so familiar, into a criminal reality by
assassinating Malibran, through the resolute expostulations of his
friends. Mme. Malibran instantly resigned for the benefit of her
husband's creditors any claims which she might have made on the remnants
of his estate, and her New York admirers had as much occasion to applaud
the rectitude and honor of the woman as they had had the genius of the
artist. Garcia himself, hampered by pecuniary difficulties, set sail