“Well, say one morning, shortly after nine, our exubriant old neighbour, Frau Volkstett, strutting straight across the cabbage market. She had been absent for three months; her great journey to visit her brother-in-law--her constant theme since we knew her--had at last become a reality; and now she has come back, and her full heart--bubbling over with the joy of travel and the impatience of friendship, and all sorts of delightful news--draws her irresistibly to the Frau Oberst. Upstairs she goes, taps at the door, and, without waiting to be bidden, walks in; you can imagine the delight and the embracements from both sides! ‘Now, dearest, best Frau Oberst,’ she begins, after some preliminaries, taking a fresh breath, ‘I bring you a bagful of messages! Can you guess from whom?’ ‘What? is it possible--did you pass through Berlin? Did you see the Mozarts? Ah, dear, sweet friend, relieve my impatience! How are our good friends? Do they like it as well as they did at first?’ ‘Yes, indeed! This summer the king sent him to Karlsbad. When would his beloved majesty, Emperor Joseph, have thought of doing such a thing? They had both but just come back when I was there. He is beaming with health and life, is growing stout and roundish, and is as lively as Mercury.’” And now the little woman proceeded to elaborate everything in her assumed _rôle_ in the most glowing colours. Of their home _Unter den Linden_, of their garden and country-house, of the brilliant effectiveness of his appearance in public, and of the exclusive little gatherings at court, where he accompanied the queen’s song on the piano, her description taking life as she went on. Entire conversations, the most charming anecdotes, she seemed to shake out of her sleeve. At the same time she was roguish enough to supply the person of our hero with a number of brand-new homely virtues, which had sprouted out of the solid ground of Prussian existence, and among which the said Frau Volkstett had noted as the highest phenomenon and proof of the marvellous potence of new surroundings the wee beginnings of a most praiseworthy little trait of parsimony, which proved a most graceful acquisition. “Yes, and only think, he has three thousand thalers secure, and all that for what? For leading a concert once a week and the opera twice. Ah, I saw him, our dear, little precious Mozart, in the midst of his _kapelle_. I sat with his wife in her box right across from their majesties. And what did the handbill say? Here it is; I brought it for you,--I wrapped it about a little present I brought you from myself and the Mozarts; here it is in plain letters!