at the coming concert--the benefit of von
Francius--a new soprano was to appear--a young lady of whom report used
varied tones; some believable facts at least we learned about her. Her
name, they said was Wedderburn; she was an English woman, and had a most
wonderful voice. The Herr Direktor took a very deep interest in her; he
not only gave her lessons; he had asked to give her lessons, and
intended to form of her an artiste who should one day be to the world a
kind of Patti, Lucca, or Nilsson.

I had no doubt in my own mind as to who she was, but for all that I felt
considerable excitement on the evening of the haupt-probe to the
"Verlorenes Paradies."

Yes, I was right. Miss Wedderburn, the pupil of von Francius, of whom so
much was prophesied, was the beautiful, forlorn-looking English girl.
The feeling which grew upon me that evening, and which I never found
reason afterward to alter, was that she was modest, gentle, yet
spirited, very gifted, and an artiste by nature and gift, yet sadly ill
at ease and out of place in that world into which von Francius wished to
lead her.

She sat quite near to Eugen and me, and I saw how alone she was, and how
she seemed to feel her loneliness. I saw how certain young ladies drew
themselves together, and looked at her (it was on this occasion that I
first began to notice the silent behavior of women toward each other,
and the more I have observed, the more has my wonder grown and
increased), and whispered behind their music, and shrugged their
shoulders when von Francius, seeing how isolated she seemed, bent
forward and said a few kind words to her.

I liked him for it. After all, he was a man. But his distinguishing the
child did not add to the delights of her position--rather made it worse.
I put myself in her place as well as I could, and felt her feelings when
von Francius introduced her to one of the young ladies near her, who
first stared at him, then at her, then inclined her head a little
forward and a little backward, turned her back upon Miss Wedderburn,
and appeared lost in conversation of the deepest importance with her
neighbor. And I thought of the words which Karl Linders had said to us
in haste and anger, and after a disappointment he had lately had, "_Das
weib ist der teufel._" Yes, woman is the devil sometimes, thought I, and
a mean kind of devil too. A female Mephistopheles would not have damned
Gretchen's soul, nor killed her body, she would have left the