with such a teacher
as von Francius."

"You must join," said Miss Hallam to me.

"There is a probe to-night to Rubinstein's 'Paradise Lost,'" said Anna.
"I shall go, not to sing, but to listen. I can take Miss Wedderburn, if
you like, and introduce her to Herr von Francius, whom I know."

"Very nice! very much obliged to you. Certainly," said Miss Hallam.

The probe was fixed for seven, and shortly after that time we set off
for the Tonhalle, or concert-hall, in which it was held.

"We shall be much too early," said she. "But the people are shamefully
late. Most of them only come to _klatsch_, and flirt, or try to flirt,
with the Herr Direktor."

This threw upon my mind a new light as to the Herr Direktor, and I
walked by her side much impressed. She told me that if I accepted I
might even sing in the concert itself, as there had only been four
proben so far, and there were still several before the haupt-probe.

"What is the haupt-probe?" I inquired.

"General rehearsal--when Herr von Francius is most unmerciful to his
stupid pupils. I always attend that. I like to hear him make sport of
them, and then the instrumentalists laugh at them. Von Francius never
flatters."

Inspired with nightmare-like ideas as to this terrible haupt-probe, I
found myself, with Anna, turning into a low-fronted building inscribed
"Staedtische Tonhalle," the concert-hall of the good town of Elberthal.

"This way," said she. "It is in the rittersaal. We don't go to the large
saal till the haupt-probe."

I followed her into a long, rather shabby-looking room, at one end of
which was a low orchestra, about which were dotted the desks of the
absent instrumentalists, and some stiff-looking Celli and Contrabassi
kept watch from a wall. On the orchestra was already assembled a goodly
number of young men and women, all in lively conversation, loud
laughter, and apparently high good-humor with themselves and everything
in the world.

A young man with a fuzz of hair standing off about a sad and
depressed-looking countenance was stealing "in and out and round about,"
and distributing sheets of score to the company. In the conductor's
place was a tall man in gray clothes, who leaned negligently against the
rail, and held a conversation with a pretty young lady who seemed much
pleased with his attention. It did not strike me at first that this was
the terrible direktor of whom I had been hearing. He was young, had a
slender, graceful figure,