n her as a pupil and given
her unusual attention.

'And now, of course,' wrote Catherine, 'she is desperately disappointed
that mamma and Agnes cannot join her in town, as she had hoped. She does
her best, I know, poor child, to conceal it and to feel as she ought
about mamma, but I can see that the idea of an indefinite time at
Burwood is intolerable to her. As to Berlin, I think she has enjoyed it,
but she talks very scornfully of German _Schwaermerei_ and German women,
and she tells the oddest stories of her professors. With one or two of
them she seems to have been in a state of war from the beginning; but
some of them, my dear Robert, I am persuaded were just simply in love
with her!

'I don't--no, I never _shall_ believe, that independent, exciting
student's life is good for a girl. But I never say so to Rose. When she
forgets to be irritable and to feel that the world is going against
her, she is often very sweet to me, and I can't bear there should be any
conflict.'

His next day's letter contained the following:--

'Are you properly amused, sir, at your wife's performances in town? Our
three concerts you have heard all about. I still can't get over them.
I go about haunted by the _seriousness_, the life and death interest
people throw into music. It is astonishing! And outside, as we got into
our hansom, such sights and sounds!--such starved, fierce-looking men,
such ghastly women!

'But since then Rose has been taking me into society. Yesterday
afternoon, after I wrote to you, we went to see Rose's artistic
friends--the Piersons--with whom she was staying last summer, and to-day
we have even called on Lady Charlotte Wynnstay.

'As to Mrs. Pierson, I never saw such an odd bundle of ribbons and rags
and queer embroideries as she looked when we called. However, Rose says
that, for "an aesthete"--she despises them now herself--Mrs. Pierson
has wonderful taste, and that her wall-papers and her gowns, if I only
understood them, are not the least like those of other aesthetic persons,
but very _recherche_--which may be. She talked to Rose of nothing but
acting, especially of Madame Desforets. No one, according to her, has
anything to do with an actress' private life, or ought to take it into
account. But, Robert dear, an actress is a woman, and has a soul!'

'Then, Lady Charlotte:--you would have laughed at our _entree_.'

'We found she was in town, and went on her "day," as she had asked Rose
to do. The ro