same generosity,
as in the days of King George. No one was allowed to enter after the
overture had begun, and an absolute hush prevailed.

The orchestra consisted of sixty or more pieces, and the audience was
critical. The parquet was filled with officers in the gayest uniforms;
there were few ladies amongst them; the latter sat mostly in the boxes,
of which there were several tiers, and as soon as the curtain fell,
between the acts, the officers would rise, turn around, and level their
glasses at the boxes. Sometimes they came and visited in the boxes.

As I had been brought up in a town half Quaker, half Puritan, the custom
of going to the theatre Sunday evenings was rather a questionable one
in my mind. But I soon fell in with their ways, and found that on Sunday
evenings there was always the most brilliant audience and the best plays
were selected. With this break-down of the wall of narrow prejudice, I
gave up others equally as narrow, and adopted the German customs with my
whole heart.

I studied the language with unflinching perseverance, for this was the
opportunity I had dreamed about and longed for in the barren winter
evenings at Nantucket when I sat poring over Coleridge's translations of
Schiller's plays and Bayard Taylor's version of Goethe's Faust.

Should I ever read these intelligently in the original?

And when my father consented for me to go over and spend a year and live
in General Weste's family, there never was a happier or more grateful
young woman. Appreciative and eager, I did not waste a moment, and my
keen enjoyment of the German classics repaid me a hundred fold for all
my industry.

Neither time nor misfortune, nor illness can take from me the memory of
that year of privileges such as is given few American girls to enjoy,
when they are at an age to fully appreciate them.

And so completely separated was I from the American and English colony
that I rarely heard my own language spoken, and thus I lived, ate,
listened, talked, and even dreamed in German.

There seemed to be time enough to do everything we wished; and, as the
Franco-Prussian war was just over (it was the year of 1871), and many
troops were in garrison at Hanover, the officers could always join us at
the various gardens for after-dinner coffee, which, by the way, was not
taken in the demi-tasse, but in good generous coffee-cups, with plenty
of rich cream. Every one drank at least two cups, the officers smoked,
the wome