ings and plays from
Grieg and Schumann, and Liszt and Wagner, and Chopin and Paderewski, and
the place intended for me in this grand organization would appear to be
that of jester to my lords and ladies. '_Ach Gott!_' says Mr. Koenig, who
'speaks ver' bad de Englisch,' 'your great people vant de last new ting.
One lady she say to me, "Dear Mr. Koenig, I tink I shall not ask you dis
season. I hear you everyvheres I go to, and I get so tired of peoples."
But vhen I takes anoder wis me I am a new beesness. You shall sing and
recite your leetle funny tings. Your great people tink dey loof music,
but dey loof better to laugh. "For mercy's sake make dem laugh, Mr.
Koenig"--dat's vhat a great man say to me. But, my gootness, how can I? I
am a musician, I am a composer, I am an arteeste!'

"For this high and noble office I have been going through a purgatory of
preparation in which I have sometimes hardly known whether I was a
hurdy-gurdy or an explosion of cats, and the future female jester has
even been known to lie down on the floor and cry in her dumps of despair
or some such devilry. However, Mr. Koenig begins to believe that I am
passable, and my first appearance is to be made immediately after Lent,
at the house of the Home Secretary, where it is not improbable, dear Aunt
Rachel, that I may meet Mr. Drake, although that is no part of my
programme.

"Of course, I shall have to look charming in any case, and I am already
busy with my dress. It is a black silk gown with a tight-fitting bodice.
The bodice has windbag sleeves, formed of shawl pieces of guipure lace,
and some lilies of the valley on the breast, finished with a waistband of
heliotrope velvet, and I am going to wear long black gloves all the way
up my arms, which are growing round and plump, and lovely enough for
anything. The skirt is my old one, and I got the lace for three-and-six,
so I am not ruining myself, you see; and though my hair is getting redder
than ever, red is the fashionable colour in London now, therefore I
sha'n't waste much money on dyes.

"But for all this brave exterior, when the time comes I know that down in
my heart I shall be terrified. It will be like the first dive of the
year. 'One plunge, Glory, my child,' and then over I'll go! I partly
realize already what it will be like by my experiences on Sunday evenings
when the celebrities come here after church, and Mr. Koenig exhibits me
to admiring friends and tells them how I brought hi