"Papa was very nice, really. His allusion to our little escapade was the only one made, and might have meant nothing at all. 'Well, you're a nice couple of people, upon my word!' and then, seeing that mamma remained a block (which she can), he introduced Paggy to one of the two ladies as 'My son-in-law, Mr. Julius Bradshaw.' I'm sure mamma gave a wooden snort and was ashamed of it before visitors, because she did another rather more probable one directly after, and pretended it was only that sort. Really, except a peck for me and saying _howd_ and nothing more to Paggy, she kept herself to herself. But it didn't matter, because of what happened. Really, it quite made me jump--I mean the way the lady Pag was introduced to rushed into his arms. I wasn't sure I hadn't better take him away at once. She was a celebrated German pianiste that had accompanied him in Paris. Mamma was at school with her at Frankfort. She had been inconsolable at the disappearance of the great Carissimi, whose playing of the Kreutzer was the only perfectly sympathetic one she had ever met. Was she never to play it with him again? Alas, no! for she was off to Vienna to-morrow, and then to New York, and if the ship went down she would never play the Kreutzer with Signore Carissimi again! "I saw papa's eye looking mischievous, and then he pointed to the Strad, where it was lying on the piano--locked up safe; we saw to that--and said there was Paganini's fiddle, why not play the _Cruet-stand_, or whatever you called it, _now_? Mamma found her voice, but lost her judgment, for she tried to block the performance on a fibby ground. Think how late it was, and how it would be keeping Madame von Hoefenhoffer! She put her head in the lion's mouth there, for the Frau immediately said she would play all night rather than lose a note of Signore Carissimi. The other two went, and nobody wanted them. I've forgotten the woman's second husband's name--he's dead--but her son's the man I told you about. Of course, he hadn't expected to meet me, and I hope he felt like a fool. I was so glad it wasn't him, but Paggy. They played right through the Kreutzer, and didn't want the music, which couldn't be found, and then did bits again, and it was absolutely glorious. Even mamma (she's fond of music--it's her only good quality--and where should I get mine from if she wasn't?) couldn't stop quite stony, though she did her best, I promise you. As for papa, he was chuckling so over mamma's dilemma--because she wanted to trample on Paggy, and it _was_ a dilemma--that he didn't care how long it went on. And do you know, dear, it _did_ go on--one thing after another, that Frau glued to the clavier like a limpet not detachable without violence--till nearly one in the morning, having begun at ten