“Oh Lord! Yes, I remember. ‘Believe me if all,’ with variations.” “Yes. He thought I meant it in jest: he laughed at it, and played a lot of ridiculous variations to burlesque it. I didnt tell him that I had been in earnest: perhaps you can imagine how I felt about it. Then, after that, in Italy, he got permission—or rather bought it—to try the organ in a church. It was growing dusk; I was tired with walking; and somehow between the sense of repose, and the mysterious twilight in the old church, I was greatly affected by his playing. I thought it must be part of some great mass or symphony; and I felt how little I knew about music, and how trivial my wretched attempts must appear to him when he had such grand harmonies at his fingers’ ends. But he soon stopped; and when I was about to tell him how I appreciated his performance, he said, ‘What an abominable instrument a bad organ is!’ I had thought it beautiful, of course. I asked him what he had been playing. I said was it not by Mozart; and then I saw his eyebrows go up; so I added, as a saving clause, that perhaps it was something of his own. ‘My dear girl,’ said he, ‘it was only an _entr’acte_ from an opera of Donizetti’s.’ He was carrying my shawl at the time; and he wrapped it about my shoulders in the tenderest manner as he said this, and made love to me all the evening to console me. In his opinion, the greatest misfortune that can happen anyone is to make a fool of oneself; and whenever I do it, he pets me in the most delicate manner, as if I were a child who had just got a tumble. When we settled down here and got the organ, he began to play constantly, and I used to practise the piano in the daytime so as to have duets with him. But though he was always ready to play whenever I proposed it, he was quite different then from what he was when he played by himself. He was all eyes and ears, and the moment I played a wrong note he would name the right one. Then I generally got worse and stopped. He never lost his patience or complained; but I used to feel that he was urging me on, or pulling me back, or striving to get me to do something which I could not grasp. Then he would give me up in despair, and play on mechanically from the notes before him, thinking of something else all the time. I practised harder, and tried again. I thought at first I had succeeded; because our duets went so smoothly and we were always so perfectly together. But I discovered—by instinct I believe—that instead of having a musical treat, he was only trying to please me. He thought I liked playing duets with him; and accordingly he used to sit down beside me and accompany me faithfully, no matter how I chose to play.” “Dear me! Why doesnt he get Rubinstein to play with him, since he is so remarkably fastidious?”