I refused, however, to go on with my lessons at the Duprez school. Singing had ceased to be the “one important thing.” Now that I had lost the conviction that my talents could raise me to the highest pinnacle of that art, I would give up the thought of practicing it publicly, and hereafter would merely exercise it for my own private enjoyment. My mind was now more and more directed to “high society”; association with all the princely, imperial, and royal personages had perhaps gone to my head. At any rate, the democratic tendencies which have marked my maturer years had not as yet been awakened. During the last part of our stay at Baden-Baden a young man had managed to obtain an introduction to me, a very young man, who paid me notable attentions; every day he used to send me a magnificent bouquet. He was an Englishman, but born in Australia, where his father, it was said, had enormous possessions. I had not given further thought to this handsome youth, who, being apparently eighteen or nineteen, scarcely seemed a suitable candidate for marriage with me now that I was twenty-five, until one day he sent in his name at our Paris residence and begged permission to bring his father, who had just arrived from Melbourne. We consented, and the next day we received a call from an elderly gentleman, who was so lame that he had to be carried upstairs. “Ladies,” his discourse began, “I am going to tell you without circumlocution what has brought me to you. In all probability I have not long to live, and I have an only son whose happiness in life I would gladly see assured. To be sure he is young to be married,—twenty years old,—but with us early marriages are not rare. He has fallen passionately in love with you, my dear young lady, and begs me to ask you for your hand; this I accordingly do with all formality. You will perhaps find this somewhat presumptuous on such a short acquaintance; but in the first place I have a very brief time before me,—I may be called away at any moment,—and in the second place I have so much to offer that there is no undue pretension in my acting as I do. I am the richest man in Australia. Among other things I own a whole street in Melbourne. My boy is my sole heir,—but even during my lifetime I am ready to settle upon him and my daughter-in-law a kingly fortune. The choice of the place where they may decide to live is left entirely to the young lady. At all events a _hôtel_ in Paris shall be bought. It is of course necessary that you be able to obtain information about us: apply to the house of Rothschild, to which my letters of credit are directed. And now I beg of you to take a week to decide this question, and meantime to permit my son to spend an hour or two every afternoon in your house, so that the young people may become better acquainted. I myself am too ill to repeat my visit very often.”