Munich, December 8.

Dear Cecilia:—

The wind is shrieking in great gusts, which begin piano, crescendo to fortissimo, and then die away in weird, unearthly echoes, while the rain keeps up a continuous counterpoint to this minor music in sharp staccato against the window panes. The mist is so thick that the obelisk at the end of Max-Joseph-strasse looks like a mere shadow. It is now five o'clock and I have "shut up shop," as it were, to talk with you, for my lesson for to-morrow, a fugue in C minor, is finished. It occurred to me, as I was writing it, how curiously a fugue subject resembles certain clever and unscrupulous people. Both are thoroughly adaptable, both are capable of saying the direct opposite of what they have previously boldly stated, both are difficult to deal with and can only be managed successfully by employing the greatest finesse.

Tuesday.

I was interrupted in my letter of yesterday by Frau von Waldfel and her niece, who came to call. Of course that meant a cup of coffee. When they left I had to hurry down to the school for a lesson, so writing was out of the question. By the bye, I am afraid I may have excited your sympathies unduly in favor of Fräulein Hartmann, for ever since that day I wrote you, when I met her crying in the hall, she has appeared most cheerful. Yesterday she was in unusual spirits, although to tell the truth her gayety struck me as somewhat forced. It was as if she were endeavoring to overcome the impression which her tears must have given me.

After my lesson with Thuille yesterday I stopped in at Miss Pollard's. She is a piano student with whom I have become acquainted, and goes by the nickname of Polly. I found her sitting on a very low stool before the piano and resting her fingers on the keys, for all the world like a child too little to reach up to play.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"I'm practising," she said, with crushing dignity. Then, throwing me a supercilious glance, "This is an exercise especially recommended by Lescheticsky."

"Oh!" said I meekly, inwardly wondering if there are any more sensitive creatures on earth than we music students. How enthusiastically we rave over our "method"! How more than ready we are to challenge man, woman, or child who breathes a doubt of its infallibility! And oh! with what majestic disdain we utterly ignore the very existence of any other! Realizing all this, I judged it wiser to change the subject by asking quickly,—

"Are the girls coming to-day?"