MAUREL is about the finest
representative of _Don Giovanni_; that Miss ARNOLDSON shows great
promise; that ALBANY is unrivalled; that MARIE ROZE is difficult to
beat as _Carmen_; and that it is a pity that PATTI'S demands are so
exorbitant; and having exhausted the list of operatic artists,--Madame
and her daughters holding that certain Germans, with whose names we,
unfortunately for us, are not even acquainted, are far superior to any
French or Italian singers that can be named--there ensues a pause in
the conversation, of which the Countess CASANOVA takes advantage,
and extending her right hand, which movement sharply jingles her
bracelets, and so, as it were, sounds a bell to call us to attention,
cuts in quickly with an emphatic, "Well, I don't profess to understand
music as _you_ do. I know what I like"--("Hear! hear!" _sotto voce_
from PULLER, coming up again to the surface, which draws a languidly
approving inclination of the head from Miss CASANOVA, and a smile,
deprecating the interruption, from Cousin JANE),--"and I must say,"
continues the Countess, emphatically, "I would rather have one hour
of SALVINI in _Othello_, than a whole month of the best Operas by
the best composers,--WAGNER included," and down comes her hand on the
table, all the bracelets ringing down the curtain on the first act.

We, the non-combatants, feel that the mailed gauntlet has been thrown
down by the Countess as a challenge to the METTERBRUNS.

"O Mother!" faintly remonstrates Miss CASANOVA, who loves a stall at
the Opera. She fears that her mother's energetic declaration means
war, and fans herself helplessly.

I am preparing to reconcile music and the drama, and am getting ready
a supply of oil for what I foresee will be troubled waters, as the
METTERBRUNS are beginning to rustle their feathers and flap their
wings,--when PULLER, leaning well forward, and stretching out an
explanatory hand, with his elbow planted firmly on the table, ("Very
bad manners," says Cousin JANE afterwards to me) says genially, "Well,
_voyez vous_, look here, you may talk of your WAGNERS and SHAKSPEARES,
and GAYARRES, and PATTIS, but, for singing and acting, give me ARTHUR
ROBERTS. Yes," he repeats pleasantly but defiantly, and taking up,
as it were, the Countess's gauntlet, "SALVINI'S not in it with ARTHUR
ROBERTS."

The Countess's fan spreads out and works furiously. The steam is
getting up. The METTERBRUNS open their eyes, and regard one another in