iving would have led no one to
suppose he was low in the locker. Nothing was too good for him; he drank
the most expensive wines, got up parties and pic-nics for the ladies,
and had a special addiction to the purchase of costly trinkets, which he
generally gave away before they had been a day in his possession. He did
not gamble; he had done so, he told me, once since he was at Homburg,
and had won, but he had no faith in his luck, or taste for that kind of
excitement, and should play no more. He was playing another game just
now, which apparently interested him greatly. A few days before myself,
a young actress, who, within a very short time, had acquired
considerable celebrity, had arrived at Homburg, escorted by her mother.
Fraulein Emilie Sendel was a lively lady of four-and-twenty or
thereabouts, possessing a smart figure and pretty face, the latter
somewhat wanting in refinement. Her blue eyes although rather too
prominent, had a merry sparkle; her cheeks had not yet been entirely
despoiled by envious rouge of their natural healthful tinge; her hair,
of that peculiar tint of red auburn which the French call a _blond
hasarde_, was more remarkable for abundance and flexibility than for
fineness of texture. As regarded her qualities and accomplishments, she
was good-humoured and tolerably unaffected, but wilful and capricious as
a spoiled child; she spoke her own language pretty well, with an
occasional slight vulgarism or bit of green-room slang; had a smattering
of French, and played the piano sufficiently to accompany the ballads
and vaudeville airs which she sang with spirit and considerable freedom
of style. I had met German actresses who were far more lady-like off the
stage, but there was nothing glaringly or repulsively vulgar about
Emilie, and as a neighbour at a public dinner-table, she was amusing and
quite above par. As if to vindicate her nationality, she would
occasionally look sentimental, but the mood sat ill upon her, and never
lasted long; comedy was evidently her natural line. Against her
reputation, rumour, always an inquisitive censor, often a mean libeller,
of ladies of her profession, had as yet, so far as I could learn, found
nothing to allege. Her mother, a dingy old dowager, with bad teeth,
dowdy gowns, a profusion of artificial flowers, and a strong addiction
to tea and knitting, perfectly understood the duties of duennaship, and
did propriety by her daughter's side at dinner-table and promen