was easily guessed by those who knew that there has been, or was
pending, a quarrel between Colonel Mapleson and M. Heugel
concerning the unauthorized use by the impresario of other scores
owned by the publisher.

During the same season, however, Miss Emma Abbott carried a version
(or rather a perversion) of the opera, for which the orchestral
parts had been arranged from the pianoforte score, into the cities
of the West, and brought down a deal of unmerited criticism on the
innocent head of M. Delibes. In the season of 1884-1885 Colonel
Mapleson came back to the Academy with vouchers of various sorts to
back up a promise to give the opera. There was a human voucher in
the person of Miss Emma Nevada, who had also enjoyed the
instruction of the composer and who had trunkfuls and trunkfuls and
trunkfuls of Oriental dresses, though Lakme needs but few. There
were gorgeous uniforms for the British soldiers, the real article,
each scarlet coat and every top boot having a piece of history
attached, and models of the scenery which any doubting Thomas of a
newspaper reporter might inspect if he felt so disposed. When the
redoubtable colonel came it was to be only a matter of a week or so
before the opera would be put on the stage in the finest of styles;
it was still a matter of a week or so when the Academy season came
to an end. When Delibes's exquisite and exotic music reached a
hearing in the American metropolis, it was sung to English words,
and the most emphatic success achieved in performance was the
acrobatic one of Mme. L'Allemand as she rolled down some uncalled-
for pagoda steps in the death scene.

Mme. Adelina Patti was the second Lakme heard in New York. After
the fifth season of German opera at the Metropolitan Opera House