Vienna laughs and weeps to her waltz music, loves and dies to its measures, to a continual "allegro con fuoco." Weber thus annotated one of the glowing movements of "Blumen der Liebe:" "Breast against breast he confesses his love and receives from her the sweet avowal of love returned."... Breast against breast indeed, giving and receiving, myriads of maidens in each generation embody the brief and tragic triumph of passion and beauty over the lengthier security of duty. In that very heart of Europe is a perpetual, warm, fermenting desire for love, an instant sensibility to the arts--to all beauty in its visible forms; but "swiftly with fire" these are forever consuming themselves, for they have little to do with material success or personal continuity. The Turks left other things there than coffee and ruins. They dropped some seed of Eastern magic into this only half Western soil and a dark flower, like no other dark flower of the earth, sprang up abundantly. Its color for a time has been washed out in the sombre waters of War and Peace; it has been trampled by the slow tread of cripples, its growth suspended in starvation. But another generation that has not seen these things and died of pity or hunger will arise, other "Flowers of Love" will blossom. The sagging portico of that stately pleasure-palace, Vienna, will be again upheld by Caryatides with glowing eyes, with bright cheeks, with thick, shining coils of dark hair, with full, soft figures and tireless, round, white arms. And in through the portico, coming from their dark side streets, will pass "allegro con fuoco," passionate, gifted young men, worshipers of the arts and devotees of the graces, with their Frauenlieb and their Frauenlob apostrophes, their lovely, tragic hymns to Spring and Hope and Love--till the sun and the moon and the stars shall have done with them. * * * * * When Frau Stacher got up that Saturday morning she found that her legs were trembling weakly and that only with the greatest effort could she stand. Her chest seemed bound in iron, too, and she was breathing quite noisily. "I've got a terrible cold after all," she thought appalled at the idea of being ill at Irma's--in the alcove. "It just can't be," she thought desperately. Up and out was the word, though down and all in was what she felt. She was momentarily comforted by the cup of ersatz coffee that Irma always served very hot, but she had a vast repugnance to the piece of hard bread. Gusl, with his sharp eyes out had been watching it as it lay untouched at her plate. "Tante Ilde, you're not eating your bread," he observed finally. "No, I don't want it. I'm not hungry," and she pushed it towards him. "Not hungry!" he exclaimed and his voice was hopeful. At that Ferry who always noticed things said: "You're not ill, Tante?"