Though we led a quiet life, I had plenty of occupation. I took singing lessons of Mme. Kogan, a delightful teacher, and had some lessons on the cithern, which didn’t hold me for long. My participation in the Tableau in which I appeared with a mandoline, suggested to me the idea to study that instrument. Signorina Ciarloni, a soloist on the harp at the Imperial Opera, who played also the mandoline, was invited to give me lessons. Mr. P⸺, one of the most assiduous frequenters of our “At Homes,” a snobbish young man bursting with conceit and thinking a lot of his appearance, proposed to accompany me on the guitar, but our duets came to nothing, for it appeared that my partner could only play Bohemian songs, throwing himself into a sentimental attitude and studying his own reflection, with complacent eyes, in the mirror on the wall beside me, which reflected his proceedings. Mme. Schwarzenberg, a great friend of ours, who was a splendid pianist and an artist to the finger-tips, asked me to sing at a musical party at her house. I sang there in public for the first time and it amused me very much to be treated as a professional singer. I should be wanting in modesty if I repeated all the compliments I received that night. Somehow or other I felt that I had a call for the stage and had missed my vocation and mistaken my profession of an opera-singer: the vision of treading the stage-boards stood before me night and day. At Christmas we got up a concert for the benefit of Professor Albrecht, an old violincellist, whose pecuniary circumstances were not very flourishing just then. My husband’s aide-de-camps took the arrangement upon themselves. A raised platform had been put at the end of our hall, and chairs were placed in rows. We invited artists and _dilettanti_ to take part in our concert. I had a duet and solo to go through and showed much courage at the rehearsal of the concert. It was poor Sergy who seemed much more excited and nervous, looking forward to that concert with excitement. At last the day of the great event arrived. I hardly knew how to get through it and spent that day like a professional prima-donna, reclining in a long chair and waiting for my triumphs. People began to arrive towards eight o’clock. There were a great many pupils of the Music Academy and the Philharmonic School among the audience. Every seat in the hall was rapidly filled up. We artists gathered behind a screen hidden from view by big plants. The agitation I felt over my _début_, before a select audience of musical critics, may easily be imagined. I had never sung in a concert before and was going to enjoy an entirely novel and exciting experience. Just before the beginning of the performance, whilst I sucked vigorously a pastille to clear my throat, a waiter brought us a bottle of champagne to keep up our courage, to the great alarm of Sergy, who thought that I had been taken by a sudden access of timidity and needed the help of that stimulating