make you fancy the whole town of Klarenburg had been turned into an immense musical academy. Another account represents this great man as passionately found of dancing; so the poor dancing-masters are to be seen hurrying from house to house sans intermission the whole day; and there is such a waltzing, and reeling, and quadrilling,—such cotillons, and cavatinas, and gavottes, as astound your very senses the moment you step into a genteel house where there are any young women. It is not many days ago since the fat Miss Hildegard slipt her foot in one of these capriccios, and came down all her length upon the floor, by all the world like a sack full of potatoes!”
At this piece of news the whole company burst out into shouts of laughter, and, to avoid detection, I tried to laugh heartily myself, but in secret I began to grow mortally afraid of the consequences which might attend my appearance at Klarenburg.
Encouraged by the approbation of his audience, the Recorder resumed: “People put themselves to an enormous deal of expense on account of this young heir. The commissioner of Excise is preparing a concert, in which it is intended his daughter, Seraphina, shall sing two bravura songs. More than six rehearsals have already taken place; but poor papa appears each time in deeper distress, for Miss Seraphina is constantly out of tune like a cracked fiddle; her shake is never full enough, and her cadence is the most lamentable thing in the world, though papa keeps whispering to her all the time to collect and reserve her breath for the trying moment. Twice has poor dear Seraphina sung herself as hoarse as a crow; but the father knows the full amount of the inheritance, and remains inexorably determined to carry through the concert.—Then as for the director of the Tobacco-monopoly, he is to give a ball, such as has never been witnessed before in this part of the country. Eighteen cousins and nieces,—fine girls all of them, and really beautiful as angels,—are to appear at this ball in the dress of Virgi-
