that I did not look well.

With Marianne, the second daughter of this hospitable household, a
beautiful girl of remarkably brilliant mind, I had formed so intimate,
almost fraternal, a friendship, that both she and her warm-hearted mother
called me "Cousin Schorge."

Frau Dirichlet, the wife of the great mathematician, the sister of Felix
Mendelssohn Bartholdy, in whose social and musical home I spent hours of
pleasure which will never be forgotten, also expressed her anxiety about
my loss of flesh. When a girl she had often met my mother, and at my
first visit she won my affection by her eager praise of that beloved
woman's charms.

As the whole family were extremely musical they could afford themselves
and their friends a great deal of enjoyment. I have never heard Joachim
play so entrancingly as to her accompaniment. At a performance in her
own house, where the choruses from Cherubini's Water-Carrier were given,
she herself had rehearsed the music with those who were to take part, and
to hear her play on the piano was a treat.

This lady, a remarkable woman in every respect, who gave me many tokens
of maternal affection, insisted on the right to warn me. She did this by
reminding me, with delicate feminine tact, of my mother when she heard of
a wager which I now remember with grave disapproval. This was to empty
an immense number of bottles of the heavy Wurzburg Stein wine and yet
remain perfectly sober. My opponent, who belonged to the Brunswick
Corps, lost, but as soon after I was attacked by illness, though not in
consequence of this folly, which had occurred about a fortnight before,
he could not give the breakfast which I had won. But he fulfilled his