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and about Jean de Reszke’s return to the Metropolitan that night, after a long illness in London.
By two o’clock every one had gone but the two Polish ladies. Modjeska, after she put on her long cloak, went to the window, drew back the plum-coloured curtains, and looked out. “See, Myra,” she said with that Slav accent she never lost, though she read English verse so beautifully, “the Square is quite white with moonlight. And how still all the ci-ty is, how still!” She turned to her friend; “Emelia, I think you must sing something. Something old . . . yes, from Norma.” She hummed a familiar air under her breath, and looked about for a chair. Oswald brought one. “Thank you. And we might have less light, might we not?” He turned off the lights.
She sat by the window, half draped in her cloak, the moonlight falling across her knees. Her friend went to the piano and commenced the Casta Diva aria, which begins so like the quiver-
