The reception. _Item_, Herr Klavierspieler, the celebrated _pianiste_, who was so fall of soul, and so mysterious, and so thin, and so long-haired, and so silent. All sorts of stories afloat about Herr Klavierspieler,--that he communed with spirits; that he was a ghoule; that he was consuming away under an unrequited passion for an Austrian countess of excessive haughtiness; whereas in real truth he was the son of a saddler in the Breite Strasse of Dresden, and his liver was deranged, perhaps by his eating five heavy meals a day, and, save when he was playing in public, never being without a pipe in his mouth. _Item_, M. Bloffski, the Pole, _the_ violincellist of the world, a fat man in spectacles, who perspired a great deal, breathed through his nose, had a red-cotton pocket-handkerchief, and played his instrument divinely. _Item_, Mr. Schrink, musical critic of the _Statesman_ newspaper, a little man with a hump-back and a frightfully sensitive ear; a little man who would cower and, shrink under false notes, and stamp and growl under bad singing; a little man whom every one hated, and who did not particularly like himself. _Item_, Fräulein Wünster, one of those German young ladies who, ever since Jenny Lind's success, have been imported into England under the firm idea that they were "going to do it," and who, having filled up gaps in the Hanover Square and St. James's Hall concerts, have returned to _Vaterland_ without having made the smallest mark. Mr. Dabb, fashionable artist, whose portrait of Mr. Schröder decorated the walls, was there; as was Mr. Fleem, the author of _Fashion and Satire_--a young gentleman who, for a cynic, seemed on remarkably good terms with himself and his fellow-creatures. Mr. Pringle and Mr. Prescott arrived together; and just after the gentlemen came up from the dining-room, Mr. and Mrs. Churchill were announced.