This friend of Bertha was, I confess, not at all to my liking. She had received a good education, and even had a cultivated judgment; but she was fain to mistake these gifts for genius, and imagined herself a thoroughly superior woman--a piece of self-deception in which flatterers encouraged her. Her husband regarded her as a woman of superior gifts, and succeeded in this way in consoling himself for the inconvenient fact of her being of Jewish descent. His faith in her genius seemed to increase rather than diminish, and it was his constant delight to sound its praises to others. Annette treated me with exceptional admiration, but she always seemed desirous of making a parade of her appreciation of me, or in other words, having it minister to her own glory. Mere possession or undemonstrative emotion afforded her no pleasure. Her talents and her reflections afforded her great enjoyment, and it was her constant desire that others should have the benefit of it. She was always inviting you to dine with her; and if you accepted her invitations, she was never satisfied until you had praised the dishes which she could so skilfully prepare. She sang with a powerful voice and drew very cleverly, but wanted the world to know it, and to pay her homage accordingly. She always addressed me as "patriarch," until I at last forbade her doing so. I was, however, obliged to submit to some of the other elegant phrases in which she was wont to indulge. She had no children, and often spent the whole day in the private gallery of the House of Parliament, where she would not cease nodding to me until I at last returned her salute. One evening there was a party at Bertha's. The wife of the Intendant-in-chief was among the guests. She was a beautiful creature, slender and undulating in form, of majestic carriage, and yet withal simple and unaffected. She had a charming voice, and sang many pretty songs for us. She was so obliging too, that, yielding to the repeated requests of her delighted auditors, she sang song after song. I had known her as a young girl. She was the daughter of the chief forester, and seemed to retain the woodland freshness of her childhood days. But she had always been ambitious, and had thirsted for the pleasures of city life, with which she had become acquainted while going to the school which was patronized by the reigning Princess. At one of the public examinations she had sung so delightfully that the Princess had praised her performance; and I believe that her desire for a brilliant life dated from that incident. She was fond of dress and show, and had married the Intendant, who was a dried-up, conceited fellow. Her marriage had not been a happy one; and now she sang love-songs full of glowing passion, of sobs and tears. I was thinking of this, and asking myself how it could be possible, when Annette sat down by my side and softly whispered to me: