House.]

[Illustration:
SARAH BERNHARDT
From a photograph taken at the time of her visit to Boston.]

After dinner we darned stockings. This sounds queer, but nevertheless
it is true. The Schiskines had just bought a darning-machine. They paid
eighty-six dollars for it; but to darn, one must have holes, and no
holes could be found in a single decent stocking, so they had to cut
holes, and then we darned. The Grand Duke was so enchanted with this
darning that he is going to take a machine home to the Grand Duchess,
his august mother.

The darning done, we had some music. M. de Schlözer improvised on the
piano, and after the Grand Duke had played some Chopin I sang. M. de
Schlözer went through his little antics as advance-courier of my
singing: he screwed the piano-stool to the proper height (he thinks it
must be just so high when I accompany myself); he removed all albums
from sight for fear people might be tempted to glance in them; he
almost snatched fans from the hands of unoffending ladies, fearing they
might use them; no dogs were to be within patting distance, _and no
smoking_; he turned all the chairs to face the piano so that no one
should turn his back to it. These are all heinous crimes in his eyes.
He would, if he could, have pulled down all the portières and curtains,
as he does in his own house when I sing there. What must people think
of him?

You ask me, "What kind of a cook have you?" Don't speak of it--it is a
sore subject! We have the black cook from the White House (so her