rs ago."

To my mind, Madame Carreno is the most wonderful genius of modern times
at the piano. I have heard all the others scores of times, so don't
argue with me. You may all worship whom you will, but the whole musical
part of my heart is at Madame Carreno's feet, with a small corner saved
for Vladimir de Pachmann, when he plays Chopin. She claims to be an
American, but she plays with a heart of a Slav, and as one whose untamed
spirit can never be held in leash even by her music. Her playing is so
intoxicating that it goes through my veins like wine. The last time I
heard her play was in an enormous hall in the West, when her audience
was composed of music lovers of every class and description. Just back
of me was a woman whose whole soul seemed to respond to Carreno's
hypnotic genius. Carreno had just finished Liszt's "Rhapsodic Hongroise"
No. 2, and had followed it up with a mad Tschaikowsky fragment. I was so
excited I was on the verge of tears when I heard the woman behind me
catch her breath with a sob and exclaim:

"My Lord! Ain't she got _vinegar_!"

I repeated this to Madame Carreno at Jenbach, and she seized my hands
and shouted with laughter. Such a grip as she has! Her hands are filled
with steel wires instead of muscles, and her arms have the strength of
an athlete in training.

The car propelled by the hunchbacked engine grated and bumped its way
over its cog-wheel road, pushing its delighted quota of passengers
higher and higher into the mountains. The Inn valley fell away from our
view, and wooded slopes, fir-trees, patches of snow on far hillsides,
and tiny hamlets took its place.

"Here and there among these little villages live my summer pupils," said
Madame Carreno. "I have six. One from San Francisco, one from Australia,
one from Paris, one from Geneva, and two from Russia--all young girls,
and with _such_ talent! They live all the way from Jenbach to the
Achensee, and come to see me once a week."

The train stopped with a final squeal of the chain, and a lurch which
loosened our joints.

Before us spread a sheet of water of such a blueness, such a limpid,
clear, deep sapphire blue as I never saw in water before.

Around it rose the hills of Tyrol, guarding it like sentinels.

It was the Achensee!

CHAPTER VII

DANCING IN THE AUSTRIAN TYROL

Jimmie is such a curious mixture that it is really very much worth while
to study his emotions. I think perhaps that even I, who find i