neither homely nor beautiful. Her whole beauty lies in two small, dark
eyes and in a fine figure. She is not brilliant, but has common sense
enough to perform her duties as wife and mother. She is not
extravagant; on the contrary, she is accustomed to go poorly dressed,
because what little her mother can do for her children she does for the
others, but never for her. It is true that she would like to be
tastefully and becomingly dressed, but never expensively; and most of
the things a woman needs she can make for herself. She does her own
coiffure every day [head-dress must have been something appalling in
those days]; understands housekeeping; has the best disposition in the
world. We love each other with all our hearts. Tell me if I could ask
a better wife for myself?"

The letter is so touchingly frank and simple that whoever reads it must
feel that the portrait Mozart draws of his Constance is absolutely true
to life. He makes no attempt to paint her as a paragon of beauty and
intellect. It is a picture of the neglected member of a
household--neglected because of her homely virtues, the one fair flower
blooming in the dark crevice of this shiftless menage. And at the end
of the letter is the one cry which, since the world was young, has
defied and brought to naught the doubting counsels of wiser heads: "We
love each other with all our hearts."

The elder Mozart, fearful for his son's future, had kept himself
informed of what was going on in Vienna. He knew that when his son's
attentions to Constance became marked, her guardian had compelled him
to sign a promise of marriage. In this the father again saw a trap
laid for his son, who in worldly matters was as unversed as a child.
But Leopold Mozart did not know how the episode ended, and little
suspected that future generations would see in it one of the most