e a rather larger company than usual, she sang and recited and
play-acted a little, and as a result all the earth--the London earth--is
talking about her, and nobody is taking any notice of the rest of the
world. Every post is bringing me flowers with ribbons and cards attached,
or illustrated weeklies with my picture and my life in little, and I find
it's wonderful what a lot of things you may learn about yourself if
you'll only read the papers. My room at this moment is like a florist's
window at nine o'clock on Saturday morning, and I have reason to suspect
that mine host and teacher, Carl Koenig, F. E. C. O., exhibits them to
admiring neighbours when I am out. The voice of that dear old turtle has
ever since Monday been heard in the land, and besides telling me about
Poland day and night from all the subterranean passages of the house, he
has taken to waiting on me like a nigger, and ordering soups and jellies
for me as if I had suddenly become an invalid. Of course, I am an
able-bodied woman just the same as ever, but my nerves have been on the
rack all the week, and I feel exactly as I did long ago at Peel when I
was a little naughty minx and got up into the tower of the old church and
began pulling at the bell rope, you remember. Oh, dear! oh, dear! My
frantic terror at the noise of the big bells and the vibration of the
shaky old walls! Once I had begun I couldn't leave off for my life, but
went on tugging and tugging and quaking and quaking until--have you
forgotten it?--all the people came running helter-skelter under the
impression that the town was afire. And then, behold, it was only little
me, trembling like a leaf and crying like a ninny! I remember I was
scolded and smacked and dismissed into outer darkness (it was the chip
vault, I think), for that first outbreak of fame, and now, lest you
should want to mete out the same punishment to me again--

"Aunt Anna, I'm knitting the sweetest little shawl for you, dear--blue
and white, to suit your complexion--being engaged in the evening only,
and most of the day sole mistress of my own will and pleasure. How
charming of me, isn't it? But I'm afraid it isn't, because you'll see
through me like a colander, for I want to tell you something which I have
kept back too long, and when I think of it I grow old and wrinkled like a
Christmas apple. So you must be a pair of absolute old angels, aunties,
and break the news to grandfather.

"You know I told you, Aunt Rach