The young musician's greatest pleasure was derived from his singing society of girls, who resumed with ardour their practices under his direction. He placed it this season on a more formal footing by drawing up a set of rules, signature to which was made a condition of membership. The document, headed '[Avertimento],' is playfully worded in a bygone style of formality, and after a short prelude, in which is set forth, amongst other things, that the practices are to be held only during spring and summer, five laws are laid down, the first two of which enjoin punctual attendance.

'Pro primo, it is to be remarked that the members of the Ladies' Choir must be there.

'By which is to be understood that they must oblige themselves to be there.

'Pro secundo, it is to be observed that the members of the Ladies' Choir must be there.

'By which is meant, they must be there precisely at the appointed time....'

Absentees and late-comers were to be fined in various amounts, according to various degrees of delinquency, and the money collected given to 'begging people,' 'and it is to be desired that it may surfeit no one.'

The fourth rule relates to the careful preservation of the music entrusted to the care of the 'virtuous and honourable ladies,' which was not to be used outside the society, and the fifth, to the admission of listeners under conditions. The whole concludes:

'I remain in deepest devotion
and veneration of the Ladies' Choir their most assiduous
ready-writer and steady time-beater
'Johannes Kreisler jun.
(alias Brahms).

'Given on Monday,
'The 30th of the month of April,
A.D. 1860.'

The signatures, or most of them, must have been added after this date, for amongst them is that of Frau Schumann, who paid a visit to Hamburg at about this time certainly, but not in April. She arrived on May 6 with Fräulein Marie Schumann, who was from an early age her mother's constant and devoted travelling companion, and, residing at the Hôtel Petersburg, attended the practices of the choir during her nearly three weeks' stay. We shall have occasion to mention the name of the great artist more than once again in interesting connexion with the sisterhood of singers, who were not a little proud of the right given them, by her signature, to claim her as an honorary colleague.[89]