Brahms was frequently asked to officiate as godfather to his friends' children, and this summer he acceded to the request of Frau Dr. Marie Janssen, eldest daughter of his first teacher, Cossel, that he would stand sponsor to her little son. A few months later Frau Janssen sent him a photograph of two of her children, which he acknowledged in the following words: 'DEAR AND ESTEEMED LADY, 'I am not able to write a real letter however strongly your kind and welcome packet tempts me to do so. Let me, however, briefly express my thanks and believe that my most cordial thoughts go out to you at Kiel, and again to Hamburg to your unforgettable father, whose memory is amongst those most sacred and dear to me. Only one thing were to be wished as to the charming little packet--that it could have smiled at him. 'In warm remembrance and with best greetings 'Yours sincerely, 'J. BRAHMS.' When the Janssens settled at Kiel, Brahms wrote to ask Groth to call upon them, saying: '... The lady is the daughter of my first pianoforte teacher Cossel of whom I must have told you. And when I began to speak of him I was certainly unable to leave off again....' At the period we have now reached, Brahms had given up his solitary Christmas evenings. The home of Dr. and Mrs. Fellinger became every year more and more a substitute to him in some sort for that home of his own which he imagined, perhaps, with longing and regret till the last year of his life. Each Christmas Eve of his last seven winters found him amongst the Fellinger family group, rejoicing in the joy of the young people, stimulating their fun, happy in feeling himself truly one in the midst of a family circle whose greatest delight it was to know that their friend of friends liked to be amongst them. Frau Fellinger always contrived some charming practical joke in the matter of the Christmas presents prepared for the master, by which he was annually and unfailingly taken in. One year--the first Christmas he passed at the house--part of her own gift table, labelled with his name, was tastefully arranged with toilet accessories. In front of a burnished mirror two candlesticks stood, holding lighted candles; between these was a pincushion, on to which was pinned a black silk necktie; some parcels with pink paper wrappings, tied with ribbon and labelled 'Finest perfume,' lay near. The only uncovered articles were packets of writing-paper of the kinds most used by Brahms, supplied in sufficient quantities to last some time.