The prima donna of the little company was Amelia Larkins, Baroski's
own articled pupil, on whose future reputation the eminent master
staked his own, whose profits he was to share, and whom he had
farmed, to this end, from her father, a most respectable sheriff's
officer's assistant, and now, by his daughter's exertions, a
considerable capitalist. Amelia is blonde and blue-eyed, her
complexion is as bright as snow, her ringlets of the colour of
straw, her figure--but why describe her figure? Has not all the
world seen her at the Theatres Royal and in America under the name
of Miss Ligonier?

Until Mrs. Walker arrived, Miss Larkins was the undisputed princess
of the Baroski company--the Semiramide, the Rosina, the Tamina, the
Donna Anna. Baroski vaunted her everywhere as the great rising
genius of the day, bade Catalani look to her laurels, and questioned
whether Miss Stephens could sing a ballad like his pupil. Mrs.
Howard Walker arrived, and created, on the first occasion, no small
sensation. She improved, and the little society became speedily
divided into Walkerites and Larkinsians; and between these two
ladies (as indeed between Guzzard and Bulger before mentioned,
between Miss Brunck and Miss Horsman, the two contraltos, and
between the chorus-singers, after their kind) a great rivalry arose.
Larkins was certainly the better singer; but could her
straw-coloured curls and dumpy high-shouldered figure bear any
comparison with the jetty ringlets and stately form of Morgiana?
Did not Mrs. Walker, too, come to the music-lesson in her carriage,
and with a black velvet gown and Cashmere shawl, while poor Larkins
meekly stepped from Bell Yard, Temple Bar, in an old print gown and
clogs, which she left in the hall? "Larkins sing!" said Mrs. Crump,
sarcastically; "I'm sure she ought; her mouth's big enough to sing a