y blood would seethe, the coldness which
I could feel that she brought to bear upon me was sufficient to prevent
me from throwing myself at her feet with passionate avowals of love.

"'I had a pretty fair tenor voice then: it had never had any
cultivation, but it was beginning to improve, and I used to sing, with
Lauretta, numbers of those tender Italian duets whose name is legion.
We were singing one of those duets one day; the time of her departure
was at hand--

"Senza di te, ben mio!
Vivere non poss' io."

"'Who could have resisted this? I threw myself at Lauretta's feet, wild
with despair.

"'She helped me to rise. "Why should we part, dear friend?" she said. I
listened in delighted amazement. She said I had much better go with her
and Teresina to the Residenz. If I meant to devote myself to music
altogether, I should have to quit my little native town some day or
other.

"'Picture to yourself a person who has bidden good-bye to life and
hope, and is falling down some black, fathomless abyss; but, at the
very instant when he expects the crash which is to dash him in pieces,
lo and behold! he is in a beautiful bower of roses, with hundreds of
little many-tinted lights dancing round him, and saying, "Darling!
you're still alive, you see!" These were my sensations at that moment.
To go with them to the Residenz was the one prominent, tangible idea of
my life.

"'I shan't weary you by describing how I set about proving to my uncle
the absolute necessity of my going to the Residenz--no such very great
distance, when all was said. He agreed at last, and said he would go
with me! Here was an unexpected baulk to my little plans. I dared not
tell him I was going with the ladies; but luckily one of his attacks of
bronchitis came to my rescue.

"'I started off in the stage-coach, but got out at the first change of
horses, and waited there for the coming of my goddesses. I had plenty
of money in my pocket, so that I was able to make all my arrangements.
My idea was to escort the ladies on horseback, like a paladin of
Romance; so I managed to hire a steed--not particularly grand to look
at, but, as his owner assured me, a good serviceable animal,--and at
the appointed time I mounted him, and rode out to meet the two
_cantatrices_. Ere long, their little double-seated phaeton was seen
coming quietly along. The two sisters were on the front seat, and
behind sat their maid, little fat G