There, upon our arrival, we found representatives from all the foreign legations, Patti’s entire troupe, and perhaps a dozen others, exclusive of the family of our hostess. The _prima donna_ soon came in, a lovely little maiden in evening dress, with a manner as winsome as was her appearance. The entertainment now began by graceful compliment from all present to the new opera queen, after which Mr. Riggs led her to the dining-room where the sumptuous supper was spread. The table was almost as wide as that of the White House. Its dazzling silver and gold and crystal vessels, and viands well worthy these receptacles, made a brilliant centre around which the decorated foreigners seemed appropriately to cluster. The little cantatrice’s undisguised pleasure was good to see. She had worked hard during the performance of the opera, and her appetite was keen. She did ample justice, therefore, to Mrs. Riggs’s good cheer, and goblets were kept brimming for quite two hours. This important part of the programme over, a young Englishman, by name Mr. Palmer, who, as the Chevalier Bertinatti (the Sardinian Minister) whispered to me, had been asked “to make some leetle fun for leetle Mees Patti,” opened the evening’s merriment by an amusing exhibition of legerdemain. Mr. Palmer, at that time a favourite music-teacher, who spent his time between Washington and Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, having in each city numerous fashionable pupils, afterward became known to the world as the great prestidigitator, Heller. On the evening of the Riggses’ supper the young magician was in his best form. Handkerchiefs and trinkets disappeared mysteriously, only to come to light again in the most unexpected places, until the company became almost silent with wonder. Mr. Palmer’s last trick required a pack of cards, which were promptly forthcoming. Selecting the queen of hearts, he said, looking archly in the direction of the diminutive Patti: “This is also a queen; but she is a naughty girl and we will not have her!” saying which, with a whiff and a toss, he threw the card into the air, where it vanished! Everyone was mystified; but Baron de Staeckl, the Russian Minister, incontinently broke the spell Mr. Palmer was weaving around us by picking up a card and pronouncing the same formula. Then, as all waited to see what he was about to do, in a most serio-comic manner he deftly and deliberately crammed it down Mr. Palmer’s collar! Amid peals of laughter from all present, the young man gave place to other and more general entertainment, in which the most dignified ambassadors indulged with the hilarity of schoolboys. [Illustration: ADELINA PATTI Aged Sixteen ]