Pauline. The little girl was only three years old when her sister Maria
made her _début_ in London, and even then she lisped the airs she
heard sung by her sister and her father with something like musical
intelligence, and showed that the hereditary gift was deeply rooted in
her own organization.

Manuel Garcia's project for establishing Italian opera in America and
the disastrous crash in which it ended have already been described in
an earlier chapter. Maria, who had become Mme. Malibran, was left in New
York, while the rest of the Garcia family sailed for Mexico, to give
a series of operatic performances in that ancient city. The precocious
genius of Pauline developed rapidly. She learned in Mexico to play on
the organ and piano as if by instinct, with so much ease did she master
the difficulties of these instruments, and it was her father's
proud boast that never, except in the cases of a few of the greatest
composers, had aptitude for the musical art been so convincingly
displayed at her early years. At the age of six Pauline Garcia could
speak four languages, French, Spanish, Italian, and English, with
facility, and to these she afterward added German. Her passion for
acquirement was ardent and never lost its force, for she was not only
an indefatigable student in music, but extended her researches and
attainments in directions alien to the ordinary tastes of even
brilliant women. It is said that before she had reached the age of
eight-and-twenty, she had learned to read Latin and Greek with facility,
and made herself more than passably acquainted with various arts and
sciences. To the indomitable will and perseverance of her sister Maria,
she added a docility and gentleness to which the elder daughter of
Garcia had been a stranger. Pauline was a favorite of her father, who
had used pitiless severity in training the brilliant and willful Maria.
"Pauline can be guided by a thread of silk," he would say, "but Maria