opular ALLERSEELEN.
This was the song of the hour; they all knew it, and up and down and
across the ice rang out their voices in unison: WIE EINST IM MAI, WIE
EINST IM MAI.

Inside Wagner's WALDCAFE at Connewitz, they sat closely packed round
one of the wooden tables, and drank beer and coffee, and ate BERLINER
PFANNKUCHEN. The great iron stove was almost red-hot; the ladies threw
off their wrappings; cold faces glowed and burnt, and frozen hands
tingled. One and all were in high spirits, and the jollity reached a
climax when, having exchanged hats, James and Miss Jensen cleared a
space in the middle of the floor and danced a nigger-dance, the lady
with her skirts tucked up above her ankles. In the adjoining room, some
one began to play a concertina, and then two or three couples stood up
and danced, with much laughter and many outcries at the narrowness of
the space. Even Dove joined in, his partner being a very pretty
American, whom Miss Martin had brought with her, and whose side Dove
had not left for a moment. Only Madeleine and Dickensey sat aloof, and
for once were agreed: Americans were really "very bad form." There was
no livelier pair than Maurice and Miss Martin; the latter's voice could
be heard above all others, as she taught Maurice new steps in a corner
of the room. Her flaxen hair had partly come loose, and she did not
stop to put it up. They were the first to run through the dark garden,
past the snow-laden benches and arbours, which, in summer, were buried
in greenery; and, from the low wooden landing place, they jumped hand
in hand on to the ice, and had shot a long way down the river before
any of the rest could follow them.

But this did not please Madeleine. As it was, she was vexed at not
having had the opportunity of a quiet word with Maurice; and when she
had laboriously skated up, with Dickensey, to the spot where, in a
bright splash of moonlight, Maurice and Miss Martin were cutting
ingenious capers, she cried to the former in a peremptory tone:
"There's something wrong with my skate, Maurice. Will you look at it,
please?" and as sharply declined Dickensey's proffered aid.

Maurice came to her side at once, and in this way she detained him. But
Dickensey hovered not far off, and Miss Martin was still in sight.
Madeleine caught her skate in a crack, fell on her knee, and said she
had now loosened the strap altogether. She sat down on a heap of snow,
and Dickensey's shade vanished good-natured