Charlotte von Stein's old house, where my mother had stayed as a girl, and which was then occupied by Fräulein Marie Schwabe, a most gifted and delightful woman.

From that time dates also my acquaintance and friendship with the well-known writer, Helene Boehlau, and her family. My mother dressed a doll like an English baby for her, and I was presented by Frau Therese Boehlau with a German Wickelkind, beloved of my heart and treasured for many years.

It was then that I first met Graefin Ulrike von Pogwisch and her nephews, Walther and Wolfgang von Goethe, then living with her in Weimar. There is a legend still current in Weimar that I, who was nicknamed 'Birdie,' was requested to sing to Tante Ulla. But the imp of perversity seized me, and instead of Twinkle, twinkle, little star,' or some such proper performance, I insisted on dancing round and singing the old nigger song, Hoop de dooden do,' to the huge delight of Baron Walther and the rest of the company. I cannot tell whether my mother had met him before, but at any rate the friendship then was firmly cemented and not long after he became godfather to my youngest brother, who was named after him.

In 1871 my mother, left a widow with four boys and myself, was persuaded by her old friends in Weimar to go and settle there for a time, and as soon as peace was declared between France and Germany we did so and found ourselves in the midst of a strenuous and most interesting literary and artistic life.

Liszt was living there, his long gaunt form in Abbé's dress and his striking and intellectual face to be seen daily in the street. I only came once into personal contact with him. It was soon after our arrival, when we were living in Professor Friedrich Martersteig's house, that a strange lady called, having heard me sing through the window, and asked if I would join a chorus to perform two pieces of Liszt's on his birthday in the Roman Catholic Church. The choruses we practised were 'O Salutaris Hostia' and Ave Maris Stella.' But when the day came, either we had not practised sufficiently or the good lady waxed nervous and lost her head. The performance was execrable and the lady in tears. But the Abbé came up and with his inimitable graciousness thanked us for the compliment and said that if we liked he would conduct it himself the following Sunday. Our spirits rose, we had a good practice at his house, and next Sunday all went like a marriage bell,

He then invited the whole crowd to his weekly matinée. There were several performers, Theodor Winkler, an excellent flautist, and others whose names I forget; but what I have not forgotten was the heavenly music under the Abbé's long fingers as he sat and dreamed over the notes, the lovely air of the 'Salutaris Hostia' wandering through exquisite variations. In an ecstasy of delight I listened entranced, when a whisper came from Miss Betham Edwards: I have left my fan at your house,' and my mother ever ready to help: 'Oh, Mariquita will fetch it for you,' and my dream was shattered and my ecstasy fallen to earth. Never before or since I believe have I run so fast as I did to fetch that fan, but still I lost much of the music, a loss over which I grieve to this day, for I never went there again!

Of all the crowd there, my mother and I were the only ones he invited to come again, and I shall never forget the sweetness of his voice and the gracious courtesy of his manner. then taking music-lessons of Herr Gottschalg, a pupil of his, and for long after I continued to receive messages through him from the Abbé to ask why the English ladies did not come again. In these days it seems strange that anyone should put what appears to be a slight on such a great man, but there were, in my mother's eyes, two excellent reasons for our keeping away. His matinées were held every Sunday at 11 A.M., the hour of our English service, then held in the great hall of the Buergerschule, and as I played the harmonium, led the singing, chose the hymns, found dear old absent-minded Dr. Wilson's places in his books, and generally conducted the business part of the service, I could not very well be spared.

The other reason was that Frau Ottilie von Goethe was very much against my being introduced to that circle, and perhaps it was not a very good one for an enthusiastic schwaermerischer Backfisch like myself. I certainly might have ranked with his adorers, who made themselves often very ridiculous in the little town. I once travelled in the same train with the Abbé, when there were thirty ladies to see him off at the station, each one with a bouquet!

Frau Ottilie von Goethe had returned to Weimar in the previous year and was then living with her two sons in the upper storey of the Goethe-house, in the same suite which she and her husband occupied after their marriage in 1817.

Ottilie was very small, not such a pretty old lady as her

sister Ulrike, but very intellectual-looking, with bright eyes, alert and vivacious. I think she loved having us children about her, and she certainly had a great affection for my mother. I have vague recollections of being very often in the house, and whenever anyone of note came to her open evenings, a few lines from her would come round to ask us to go in. I was greatly favoured, being the only young person I ever found there. Unfortunately my knowledge of German at that time was very slender, but I sat silent, trying to take in as much as possible of the wonderful conversations. I was much impressed by meeting Hermann Grimm one evening with his wife, a daughter of Bettina von Arnim. The Grand Duke, Carl Alexander, used to come in often, but I was rather frightened of him when I had to pour out his tea. We learnt to know him well enough later and to discover how kind and genial and sympathetic he was. Another intimate friend was Allwine Fromann, a clever and delightful old lady, who had been reader to the Empress Augusta for forty years.

The receptions were of the simplest character. Frau Ottilie held open house every evening, and always sat in the same chair behind a large round table at which her guests assembled and were regaled with tea and cakes. The conversation never flagged, for, added to the fact that they were mostly clever and intellectual people who were to be met there, Frau Ottilie had the great gift of bringing out the best conversational powers of her guests. She possessed an autograph album with a page and a motto for every day in the year. In this were, of course, a great number of well-known names, and I remember seeing a small musical sketch of Mendelssohn's in it. I have often heard Baron Walther speak of Fanny Mendelssohn and looked with reverence on the chair in which he said she generally sat when there. He also told me that she composed many of the Lieder ohne Worte,' notably the first, a favourite and very beautiful one. Another name often on his lips was that of Mme. Schumann, but always as Clara Wieck.'

One day he told me the following story. He was at a musical reception at which a certain great singer had been asked to sing a song by a young unknown composer. But when the evening came the singer refused, saying that the song was not worth hearing. However, when it was discovered that the music, tied round with a peculiar knot, had never been opened,

the host insisted on its being sung. It was the 'Erlkoenig'! An immense sensation followed, the audience were enthusiastic, the applause vociferous, and from that night onward the name of Schubert was no longer unknown.

One of the greatest losses which befell the family was that of Goethe's charming and gifted grand-daughter at the early age of seventeen. She was always mentioned with a tender reverence by her brothers as our sister Alma' and often a quick look up at the large picture of her sweet face crowned with roses which hung over the place where their mother sat. Frau Ottilie took a great interest in our small doings, and I have a charming letter of hers inviting my three little brothers to tea with a small godson and asking them to bring some toys (soldiers, &c.), or books, because I am not sure that I have much what would amuse them.' Her sons also, I think, must have enjoyed the young people running in and out, bringing innocent sunshine into their otherwise colourless lives. They were dreadfully menschenscheu and withdrew themselves, after their mother's death in 1872, entirely from society. It was not from want of asking. My mother and their staunch and faithful friend Frau Charlotte Hardtmuth, as well as others, endeavoured to induce them to forsake their hermit-like existence, but it was useless. They were very much liked and were both interesting and charming clever men, but the shadow of their titanic grandfather seemed to have oppressed them all their lives and they never were able to shake it off.

To us they were goodness itself; they never forgot our birthdays, and I have a vivid recollection of a large bouquet of lovely flowers which Baron Walther brought me on one of mine. The scene is very clear to me. The exquisite flowers on the piano, he sitting behind listening, while I in gratitude sang to him Blind Nydia's Song,' at that time a great favourite, the refrain of which ran: Bring more flowers'; which rather illustrates the old proverb, Gratitude consists in a lively sense of favours to come.' When I realised what I had done, confusion covered me.

After the death of Frau Ottilie her sons, who were about the most unbusinesslike men imaginable, seem to have consulted my mother about their affairs. They had no idea of their income and we always thought them exceedingly poor. Certainly it was from no miserliness that they stinted themselves, but from sheer want of business faculties. The feeling

of Pietät towards both grandfather and mother was very strong, and nothing was ever altered nor any rearrangement made.

My mother at length persuaded them to let her a suite of rooms which was standing empty and only getting more and more dilapidated, and after it was put in order we moved into the Goethe-house in the late summer of 1873 and lived there until our return to England in April 1876. The entrance to our rooms was at the top of the grand staircase. The door opened straight into the yellow salon, a long, narrow, uncomfortablyshaped room with two windows to the street; leading out of this was the blue room with a classic frieze and vaulted ceiling painted with garlands. This room was really a covered bridge from the front part to the old rooms at the back across the courtyard; being open to the air on two sides as well as top and bottom it was bitterly cold in winter, and as there were no means of heating it was useless except in summer. Beyond the blue room was a little entrance painted duck's-egg green, and beyond that a little arched wooden platform and steps. leading to the garden.

The colours of these rooms when they were done up had to be matched very carefully so as to preserve the effect as Goethe meant it to be (I always understood that it had something to do with his Farbenlehre), and I was greatly surprised when I visited the house lately, as it is now turned into a museum, to find that the blue was a much harsher shade of colour and that it had been carried through into the little entry beyond. In this latter there was a mysterious door without a handle, papered like the wall but not locked. We children managed to open it, moved a few of the books on the shelves that filled the door recess and got into an enchanted land, a whole suite of rooms looking on to the garden, fully furnished in quaint old style, even to a piano and music. These were Baron Wolf's rooms but rarely inhabited by him. I went through them once by the legitimate door, when I found old Minchen doing some cleaning, badly wanted.

This was one of the many mysteries of the old house. Another was a dark cupboard on one of the back staircases containing Goethe's firewood, which had never been touched since his death and was covered with dirt and cobwebs! Our empty boxes were stowed in part of an old attic partitioned off by wooden slats. Through these we saw all sorts of treasures,