“Would your Majesty like to have some?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed; very much,” she replied.  “But I could never sing them.  You would have to teach me how.  They suit your voice, but would they mine?  No one can sing them as you do.”

“I learnt them with Massenet; that is why,” I replied.

I wrote to Massenet and begged him to send the same collection to the Queen, as she had been so delighted with his songs, and added, “Don’t forget to put your name, the dates, and a bar or two of music just like what you sent to me.”

Most amiably he did what I asked for, and the Queen was more than pleased, and immediately thanked him through the Marquise Villamarina.

Massenet has become a great celebrity now.  Twenty years ago, when he was struggling to get on in Paris, Auber and I helped him.  I used to pay him five francs an hour for copying manuscripts.  Now one pays twenty francs just to look at him!

Mr. Morgan, of London, has hired our good friend George Wurts’s magnificent apartment in the relic-covered Palazzo Antici-Mattei.  Wurts is secretary to the American Legation in Petersburg, but comes occasionally to see his friends in Rome, who all welcome him with delight.  Mr. Morgan gives beautiful dinners, and, although he has as many fires as he can possibly have, the huge rooms are freezingly cold, and sometimes we sit wrapped in our mantles.

ROME, 1st of January, 1886.

My dear Aunt,—­All Johan’s and my most affectionate greetings:  “May the year which commences to-day bring you every joy.”  I am selfish enough to wish that it will bring us the joy of seeing you.  You promised to make us a visit.  Why not this spring?

It is six o’clock.  I am sitting in my dressing-gown and feeling good for nothing.  The diplomatic reception this afternoon was as brilliant as the others which I have described so often.  The Queen was, if possible, more beautiful and gracious than ever. (I think the same each time I see her.) Every eye followed her.  Does there exist in the world a more complete and lovely woman?  To-day the Queen’s dress was exquisite—­a white satin covered with paillettes and beads, the court train of blue velvet heavily embroidered in silver.  The tiara of diamonds, with great upward-pointed shaped pearls which her Majesty wore, was the King’s New-year gift.  “My Christmas present,” the Queen told me.

The King seemed more talkative than usual; he spoke a long time with each person and smiled and laughed continually.  Politics must be easy—­like honors in whist.  There is evidently no trouble in that quarter.

March.