Shortly after they arrived, that most amiable and august Princess, the Emperor's Consort, became very solicitous to avail herself of Madame de Rossi's admirable gifts at some concerts of sacred music, which her Majesty was desirous to give at the Winter Palace, and likewise in some operatic performances, with the assistance of the amateurs and _dilettanti_ of her Court. Madame de Rossi was naturally most anxious to gratify the august lady, as much beloved as she is deeply respected by all, and to whom she bore special gratitude. But that the wife of his representative should never sing in public in any form, was the special injunction of the king of Sardinia, when he consented to the official acknowledgment of Madame de Rossi's marriage, and the latter did not even dare to apply on the subject to head-quarters. Count Nesselrode, the chancellor of the Russian empire, whose ruling occupations and predilections, apart from diplomacy, are the culture of music and that of flowers--the former with enthusiasm--undertook the treaty, and entered into the negotiation with as much zeal as if the question was the cession of a new province to the away of the Czar. The King of Sardinia was too much of a _chevalier_ not to feel he could refuse nothing to such a negotiator, when the question was to oblige so peerless a lady as the Empress. The whole Court was on the tip-toe of expectation--the delay had added fuel to the general eagerness. Led by Madame de Rossi, the performances at the Emperor's palace formed an epoch in the enjoyments of the Court. This may be easily accounted for. For here Madame de Rossi enacted chosen portions of operas, of which her reading is, in a mere dramatic point of view, the most deeply affecting. The more exalted the auditory, the more fully are its delicate traits understood. The conception is natural, at the same time as refined in the extreme. Not employing any of those outbursts, dramatic over-coloring, and _jeux de ficelle_, to which most of the lyrical actresses are addicted, there is a continuity and unity, a "oneness," in the elaboration of her parts, which renders the illusion complete, provided the spectator's education be proportioned to the performance. A few years since, Italian singers, ever the models, were the most listless and inanimate of actors; now most of these vocalists, having undergone revolutionary and foreign influence, have gone to the other extreme--their predecessors acted like telegraphs--they, like windmills. Madame de Rossi gives the utmost value to the feeling of the part, without forgetting that the first duty is to give also utmost value to each note, and avoiding the gusty utterance, the spasmodic gesture, and clap-traps "_ad captandum vulgus_," her marvellous tones are evolved in all their purity, beauty of modulation, and all-surpassing agility. The spectators do not suffer from the contemplation of those efforts, and that suffusion of the face, that straining of the nerves, blood-vessels,