person,
before crossing the threshold, bowed toward the couch in the slow, formal
manner which etiquette dictated.

As soon as Queen Mary found herself alone with the musicians and the
marquise, she beckoned graciously to the former, but with familiar
kindness to Wolf, and asked for a brief account of his journey. Then she
confessed that the Emperor's sufferings and melancholy mood had induced
her to subject them to the discomforts of the trip to Ratisbon. His
Majesty was ignorant of their presence, but she anticipated the most
favourable result upon her royal brother, who so warmly loved and keenly
appreciated music, if he could hear unexpectedly the finest melodies,
sometimes inspiring, sometimes cheering in tone.

Her inquiry whether his Majesty's orchestra and her own boys would be
able to give a performance that evening was eagerly answered in the
affirmative by Maestro Gombert, the conductor of the orchestra, and
Benedictus Appenzelder, conductor of the boy choir, who was in her
personal service. She expressed her pleasure in the knowledge, and then
proposed to surprise the Emperor at the principal meal, about midnight,
with Jacob Hobrecht's Missa Graecorum, whose magnificent profundity his
Majesty especially admired.

Gombert forced himself to keep silence, but the significant smile on his
delicate, beardless lips betrayed what he thought of this selection. The
conductor of the boy choir was franker. He slightly shook his ponderous
head, whose long, gray hair was parted in the middle, and then honestly
admitted, in his deep tones, that the Missa Graecorum seemed to him too
majestic and gloomy for this purpose. Wolf, too, disapproved of the
Queen's suggestion for the same reason, and, though she pointed out that
she had chosen this composition precisely on account of its deep
religious earnestness, the former persisted in his opposition, and
modestly mentioned the melody which would probably be best suited for a
surprise at his imperial Majesty's repast.

Maestro Gombert had recently composed a Benedictio Mensae for four
voices, and, as it was one of his most effective creations, had never
been executed, and therefore would be entirely new to the Emperor, it was
specially adapted to introduce the concert with which the monarch was to
be surprised at table.

The Queen would have preferred that a religious piece should commence the
musical performance, but assented to Wolf's proposal. Gombert himself
dispelled