appearance. It was for this first recital that she wrote the poem
by which she is best known, "The Song my Paddle Sings."

On this eventful occasion, owing to the natural nervousness which
besets a beginner, and to the fact that she had scarcely had time
to memorize her new poem, she became confused in this particular
member, and forgot her lines. With true Indian impassiveness,
however, she never lost her self-control, but smilingly passed over
the difficulty by substituting something else; and completely won
the hearts of her audience by her coolness and self-possession. The
one thought uppermost in her mind, she afterwards said, was that she
should not leave the platform and thereby acknowledge her defeat;
and it is undoubtedly this same determination to succeed which has
carried her successfully through the many years she has been before
the public.

The immediate success of this entertainment caused Mr. Yeigh to
undertake the management of a series of recitals for her throughout
Canada, with the object of enabling her to go to England to submit
her poems to a London publisher. Within two years this end was
accomplished, and she spent the season of 1894 in London, and had
her book of poems, "The White Wampum," accepted by John Lane, of the
"Bodley Head." She carried with her letters of introduction from His
Excellency the Earl of Aberdeen and Rev. Professor Clark, of Toronto
University, which gave her a social and literary standing in London
which left nothing to be desired.

In London she met many authors, artists and critics, who gave this
young Canadian girl the right hand of fellowship; and she was
received and asked to give recitals in the drawing-rooms of many