We had a last musical afternoon to-day at Marie Humlicher's: 8 hands, two pianos, she directing and the performers being Ctesse. de Bylandt, Mlle. de Staal, Hilda and I. We played Mozart and Schumann, really very well. Mlle. Humlicher has a nice big room over a coutouriere on Fulham Road. She always gives us tea after the music, which is generally brought up by a tidy little English maid with her cap and apron. She was astounded this afternoon when the tea was brought in by a most elegant young person, dressed in the latest fashion, and attended by a second, also most stylish--however, as the tea was all right she did not say anything; neither did I, but I waited a moment after the other ladies had gone and she had a mysterious conversation on the stairs and came in highly amused. It seems the two elegant ladies were the dressmaker and her assistant. When they saw all these ambassadorial equipages at their door--enormous powdered footmen, wigs, cockades, etc., also Hilda's beautiful carriage (Deichmann has splendid horses always and everything perfectly well turned out), their curiosity got the better of them and they felt they _must_ see the swells; so they interviewed the maid, installed her in their rooms to attend to any customer who might come, got into their swell garments, and brought up the tea. Wasn't it funny? Luckily we were all rather elegant. I had been paying some farewell visits, and it so happened that we were all up to the mark. I have sometimes gone to Mlle. Humlicher's on foot in a cloth dress, as it is not far from the Embassy. I am sorry to have done with those afternoons--Mlle. Humlicher plays beautifully--she is a pupil of Rubinstein's and has a real artistic nature. Friday, March 17th.