This notice was tied round the neck of the melancholy stag’s head in the dining-room. It graced him like a red and white “dinner bib” for days before the event, causing the Herr Professor to bow before it and say “good appetite” until we sickened of his pleasantry and left the smiling to be done by the waiter, who was paid to be pleasing to the guests. On the appointed day the married ladies sailed about the pension dressed like upholstered chairs, and the unmarried ladies like draped muslin dressing-table covers. Frau Godowska pinned a rose in the centre of her reticule; another blossom was tucked in the mazy folds of a white antimacassar thrown across her breast. The gentlemen wore black coats, white silk ties and ferny buttonholes tickling the chin. The floor of the salon was freshly polished, chairs and benches arranged, and a row of little flags strung across the ceiling—they flew and jigged in the draught with all the enthusiasm of family washing. It was arranged that I should sit beside Frau Godowska, and that the Herr Professor and Sonia should join us when their share of the concert was over. “That will make you feel quite one of the performers,” said the Herr Professor genially. “It is a great pity that the English nation is so unmusical. Never mind! To-night you shall hear something—we have discovered a nest of talent during the rehearsals.” “What do you intend to recite, Fräulein Sonia?” She shook back her hair. “I never know until the last moment. When I come on the stage I wait for one moment and then I have the sensation as though something struck me here,”—she placed her hand upon her collar brooch—“and... words come!” “Bend down a moment,” whispered her mother. “Sonia, love, your skirt safety-pin is showing at the back. Shall I come outside and fasten it properly for you, or will you do it yourself?” “Oh, mamma, please don’t say such things,” Sonia flushed and grew very angry. “You know how sensitive I am to the slightest unsympathetic impression at a time like this.... I would rather my skirt dropped off my body—” “Sonia—my heart!” A bell tinkled. The waiter came in and opened the piano. In the heated excitement of the moment he entirely forgot what was fitting, and flicked the keys with the grimy table napkin he carried over his arm. The Frau Oberlehrer tripped on the platform followed by a very young gentleman, who blew his nose twice before he hurled his handkerchief into the bosom of the piano. “Yes, I know you have no love for me, And no forget-me-not. No love, no heart, and no forget-me-not.” sang the Frau Oberlehrer, in a voice that seemed to issue from her forgotten thimble and have nothing to do with her. “Ach, how sweet, how delicate,” we cried, clapping her soothingly. She bowed as though to say, “Yes, isn’t it?” and retired, the very young gentleman dodging her train and scowling.