There was much applause. I saw Afra wipe a tear from her eye; only, a thin-faced individual who sat near me whispered that it was too long. The delicacy and pathos of expression and language it is impossible to give, and, though old in form, the story was skillfully new in incident; nor must I forget that the little dog slipped through the eternal gate with his master. Some one asked the troubadour why he did not write it out. He shook his head and threw up his hands as he replied, "I wrote one book and gave it to a literary man for correction. You should have seen the manuscript when he sent it home: not a page but was scarred and cut. He called that 'style.' Now, what did I want with style? I wanted to write as I talked."
"Certainly," said one. "What did you do?"
"I quickly put Monsieur le Rédacteur's style out of my book; then I published it. George Sand promised to write the preface, but some busybody told her that I was attacking the whole world, so she would have nothing to do with it. She was misled: I blamed nothing in my book but what deserved censure."
Having heard this excellent representation of the ancient minstrel, we were shortly given a touch of the modern usurper of the name. A gentleman was present who in the many turns of Fortune's wheel had once found himself a follower of the burnt-cork persuasion. He gave us a negro melody with a lively accompaniment on the guitar. A melancholy Spanish song followed. The company again dispersed into congenial groups, and in the long twilight you heard the murmur of voices broken by occasional snatches of melody or the nightingale's song.
"And what do you think of Bohemia?" asked Afra as we returned that night.
"It is different from what I expected. They are refined, and, though frank, never rude. I think—"
Afra laughed: "You had unconsciously thought them a set of sharpers; but there is a great difference between living by your brains and living by your wits. My dear, you have broken bread with giants to-day: such men live in another world that they may rule this one."
ITA ANIOL PROKOP.