y sprites, in time to the music. Her whole effect was
romantic beyond expression, and I could not take my eyes away from her;
although Lauretta called her absurd, and said she was a silly, forward
girl, and had better take care she didn't meet with an accident.
However, the horse seemed to have altered his tactics--or perhaps he
preferred the lady-singer to the Paladin; at all events, it was not
till we were close to the gates of the Residenz that Teresina clambered
back into the carriage again.

"'Imagine me now deliciously up to my eyes in concerts, operas, and
music of every description, passing my days and hours at the piano,
whilst arias, duets, and I don't know all what, are being studied and
rehearsed. From the total change in my outward man you gather that I am
permeated and inspired by a spirit of might. All the provincial
bashfulness is gone. I sit at the piano, a _maestro_, with the score
before me, conducting my donna's _scenas_. My whole soul and existence
is centred in melody. With the utmost contempt for counterpoint,
I write quantities of _canzonettas_ and _arias_, which Lauretta
sings--only in private, however. Why won't she ever sing anything of mine
at a concert? I can't make this out. Teresina sometimes dawns on my
memory, curvetting with her lyre on her charger, like some incarnation of
music; and, spite of myself, I write loftier and more serious strains
when I think of this. Lauretta, no doubt, sports and plays with the
notes like some fairy-queen. What does she ever attempt in which she
does not succeed? Teresina never attempts a _roulade_; a simple
_appoggiatura_ or so, in the antique style, is the utmost that she
ventures upon; but those long, sustained notes of hers shine through
the dim background, and wonderful spirits arise, and gaze, with their
earnest eyes, deep into the breast. I don't know why mine was so long
before it opened to them.

"'The sisters' benefit-concert came off at length. Lauretta was singing
a great _scena_ of Anfossi's. I was, of course, at the piano as usual.
We had arrived at her final "pause," where her grand _cadenza ad
libitum_ had to come in. It was a question of showing what she really
_could_ do. Nightingale trills went warbling up and down; then came
long holding-notes; then all kinds of florid passages--a regular
_solfeggio_; even _I_ thought the affair was being kept up too long.
Suddenly I felt a breath. Teresina was standing close behind me;
Lauretta was