heir combined efforts was that they at last
achieved quite a distinguished position. Annette, who was a Jewess by
birth, and very wealthy, had at first attempted to conquer her way into
society by dress and show. Yielding, however, to the counsels of
Bertha, she took the better course; and by adopting a simple and
dignified manner, free from any craving for admiration, the recognition
she merited was accorded her.

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 so