communities, the Protestants
themselves were divided into French and German churches. The French
choir-master used to take the part of "Charlotte," and my uncle used to
say he sang it--spectacles on nose--in the loveliest falsetto that ever
issued from a human throat.

"'There dwelt amongst us, at this period, a certain "court-singer,"
retired on pension, whose name was Mademoiselle Meibel. She was a
demoiselle of some five-and-fifty summers, but my uncle thought it
would be only a proper thing if she could be induced to emerge
occasionally from her pensioned retirement, so far as to sing a solo
now and then at our concerts. After giving herself the proper amount of
airs, and saying "no" a sufficient number of times, she graciously
yielded, so that we got the length of including an occasional "_Aria di
Bravura_" in our programmes. She was an extraordinary-looking creature,
Mademoiselle Meibel. I can see her little wizened figure at this moment
as if she were here before my eyes. She used to come forward on to the
platform, very grave and dignified, her music in her hand, dressed in
nearly all the colours of the rainbow, and make a ceremonious dip of
the upper part of her body to the audience. She used to have on a
miraculous sort of head-gear, with Italian porcelain flowers stuck on
the front of it; and, as she sung, these flowers used to nod and quiver
in the oddest fashion. When she ended her solo--received always by the
audience with boundless applause--she would hand her music, with a
glance of pride, to my master, who was accorded the privilege of
dipping his forefinger and thumb into the little box, in the shape of a
pug dog, which she at such times produced, and took snuff from with a
courtly air. She had a most disagreeable, quavering voice, and
introduced all kinds of horrible, vulgar grace-notes and flourishes;
and you can imagine the ludicrous effect which this, in combination
with her external appearance, produced on me. My uncle was loud in
encomiums, but this was incomprehensible to me, and I sided all the
more with my organist, who despised all vocal music, and used to mimic
old Mademoiselle Meibel in the most entertaining style.

"'The more I coincided with my master in considering all singing to be
an inferior province of the musical art, the higher waxed his estimate
of my musical endowments. He taught me counterpoint with untiring,
indefatigable pains and zeal, and ere long I was able to write the
c