"'What! Not through Berlin! You haven't been with the Mozarts?' 'Yes, ten heavenly days!' 'Oh, my dear, good Frau General, tell me all about them! How are our dear people? Do they like Berlin as well as ever? I can hardly imagine Mozart living in Berlin! How does he act? How does he look?' 'Mozart! You should see him! This summer the King sent him to Karlsbad. When would that have occurred to his dear Emperor Joseph? They had but just returned when I arrived. He is fairly radiant with health and good spirits, as sound and solid and lively as quicksilver, with happiness and comfort beaming from his countenance.'" And then the speaker began to paint in the brightest colors the glories of the new position. From their dwelling on Unter den Linden, from their garden and country-house to the brilliant scenes of public activity and the smaller circle of the court--where he was to play accompaniments for the Queen--all were vividly described. She recited, with the greatest ease, whole conversations, and the most delightful anecdotes. Indeed she seemed more familiar with Berlin, Potsdam, and Sans Souci than with the palace at Schönbrunn and the Emperor Joseph's castle. She was, moreover, cunning enough to depict our hero with many new domestic virtues which had developed on the firm ground of the Berlin life, and among which Frau Volkstett had perceived (as a most remarkable phenomenon and a proof that extremes sometimes meet) the disposition of a veritable little miser--and it made him altogether most charming.