her _comptoir_.

When M, and Madame Faure had finished receiving, they came into
the room where the diplomats were; and the President, giving his
arm to the lady highest in rank (the _protocole_ arranged the
other couples) we marched through the crowd of gazers-on, through
the ballroom, where some youths and maidens were whirling in the
dance, through the palm-filled winter garden, where the people
were crowded around a buffet, and through all the _salons_ until
we reached the last one, quite at the end of the palace, where a
sumptuous buffet awaited us. At one o'clock we returned home. It
amused me to see old Waldteufel still wielding his _baton_ and
playing his waltzes as of old. I wanted to speak to him, but,
being in the procession, I could not stop.

Yesterday I had a visit from Adelina Patti. I had not seen her for
a long time. It seemed only the other day that I had written a
letter condoling with her on the death of Nicolini, her second
husband. This time she was accompanied by her third husband, Baron
Cederstrom, a very fine-looking Swede whose family we knew well in
Sweden. The _diva_ looked wonderfully young, and handsomer than
ever. When they came into the _salon_ together one could not have
remarked very much difference in their ages, though he is many
years younger than she is.

Massenet comes often to see me. He is a great man now. He and
Saint-Saens are the most famous musicians of France at the present
moment. Massenet has never forgotten old kindnesses; and, no
matter where he is, whether on a platform at a concert, or in a
drawing-room full of people, he always plays as a prelude or an
improvization the first bars of a favorite song of his I used to
sing. He sends me a copy of everything he composes, and always
writes the three bars of that song on the first page.

Among others we find our friend Marquise de Podesta. She is a sort
of lady in waiting to Ex-Queen Isabella of Spain. I went to see
her at the Queen's beautiful palace in the avenue Kleber. I was
delighted when she asked me if I would like to make the
acquaintance of the Queen. I went two days later to what she
called an "audience." The Queen received me in a beautiful room
lined with old Gobelin tapestry and furnished with great taste.
She is rather heavy and stout and wears a quantity of brown hair
plastered over her temples, which does not give her the height a
Queen ought to have. She was very amiable, asked many questions
about