eft us to our own devices, and we were all in
the garden. I was sitting in a swing, and my sister, Dessauer, and
Chorley were lying on the lawn at my feet, when presently, striding
towards us, appeared the extravagant figure of Mrs. Grote, who, as
soon as she was within speaking-trumpet distance, hailed us with a
stentorian challenge about some detail of dinner--I think it was
whether the majority voted for bacon and peas or bacon and beans.
Having duly settled this momentous question, as Mrs. Grote turned
and marched away, Dessauer--who had been sitting straight up,
listening with his head first on one side and then on the other,
like an eagerly intelligent terrier, taking no part in the culinary
controversy (indeed, his entire ignorance of English necessarily
disqualified him for even comprehending it), but staring intently,
with open eyes and mouth, at Mrs. Grote--suddenly began, with his
hands and lips, to imitate the rolling of a drum, and then broke out
aloud with, "_Malbrook s'en vat' en guerre_," etc.; whereupon the
terrible lady faced right about, like a soldier, and, planting her
stick in the ground, surveyed Dessauer with an awful countenance.
The wretched little man grew red and then purple, and then black in
the face with fear and shame; and exclaiming in his agony, "_Ah,
bonte divine! elle m'a compris!_" rolled over and over on the lawn
as if he had a fit. Mrs. Grote majestically waved her hand, and with
magnanimous disdain of her small adversary turned and departed, and
we remained horror-stricken at the effect of this involuntary
tribute of Dessauer's to her martial air and deportment.

When she returned, however, it was to enter into a most interesting
and animated discussion upon the subject of Glueck's music; and
suddenly, some piece from the "Iphigenia" being mentioned, she
shouted for her man-servant, to whom on his appearance she gave
orders to bring her a chair and footstool, and "the big fiddle" (the
violoncello) out of the hall; and taking it forthwith between her
knees, proceeded to play, with excellent taste and expression, some
of Glueck's noble music upon the sonorous instrument, with which St.
Cecilia is the only female I ever saw on terms of such familiar
intimacy.

The second time Mrs. Grote invited me to the Beeches, it was to meet
Mdlle. Ellsle