You ask me, “What kind of a cook have you?” Don’t speak of it—­it is a sore subject!  We have the black cook from the White House (so her certificate says).  She is not what our fancy painted her.  Neither is the devil as black as he is painted (I don’t know why I associate them in my mind).  We had painted this cook white.  I shudder to think how the White House must have lived in those years when she did the cooking.  Our dinners are simply awful.  Although she has carte blanche to provide anything and everything she wants, our dinners are failures.  I look the fact in the face and blush.  Our musical parties are better when I do the cooking and Johan does the serving—­I mean when I sing and he fills the gaps.  The diplomats groan.  “Think,” they say, “what a finished cook would do with all the delicious things they have here—­all these wonderful birds and meats and vegetables, and only the one sauce!”

The charity concert, of which I was dame patronesse, went off with success.  We made a great deal of money.  M. de Schloezer paid twenty dollars for his ticket.  My chorus covered itself with glory and was encored.  As the concert finished at ten, we adjourned to the Zamaconas’ (Minister of Mexico) first ball, and I hope, for them, their only one.  It was one of those soirees where people appropriate the forks and spoons.  It cost, they say, ten thousand dollars.  The assemblage was promiscuous, to say the least.  Every one who asked for an invitation got one, and went.  The Minister had hired the house next the Legation, and cut doors into it so that there should be plenty of room, but even then there was not sufficient space to contain the crowd of miscellaneous guests.  There were two orchestras, but no one wanted to dance.  Every one wandered about through the rooms or lolled in the grottoes, which were lighted with different-colored lamps.  In every corner were fountains of cologne, around which the gentler sex stood in crowds saturating their handkerchiefs—­some of which had cross-stitch initials in red thread.  Mirrors were placed at the end of each room to prolong the vista.  “Mexico,” in enormous letters formed by gas-jets, stood over the entrances.  And as for the supper, it was in a room out of all proportion to the gathering!  There was no question of getting into it; only prize-fighters and professional athletes could elbow their way through the crowd.  The waiters had long since disappeared, frightened at their formidable task.  The chairs intended for the guests were utilized as tables on which to put unfinished plates of food and half-empty glasses.  Everything that was not spilled on the floor was spilled on the table.  Such things as bonbons, cakes, etc., that could be stowed away in pockets, vanished like magic.  Gentlemen (?) broke the champagne-bottles by knocking them on the table, sending the contents flying across the room.  The lady guests drew out the silver skewers which ornamented the plats montees and stuck them in their hair as mementoes of this memorable evening.