Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

264 Mr MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
SO essentially different, have such a chance as this of'
mutually stimulating and supplementing each other.
And we all three have let it slip. Let this parting
warn us to seize the next opportunity when we find
ourselves with congenial spirits, and use it to the full.'
The speaker was a Eussian lady, who was much at-
tached to me. She lived in St. Petersburg, and one
or two letters passed between us after my mother and
I had left Geneva and gone home. Her letters then
ceased ;
I wrote once or twice again, and, receiving no
reply, thought she was no more.
I had not, however, forgotten my enthusiastic elder
friend, and curiously enough, several years afterwards
—the year before I saw Henselt—I had while in Italy
heard from a casual acquaintance that Madame I
was in good health, had returned to St. Petersburg
after a long absence, and was as musical as ever. One
of the first things I did, accordingly, on reaching St.
Petersburg, was to write to her, and ask her to come
and see me. She at once replied that she would
come the following day ; she did so, and we met after
the lapse of many years, as friends drawn all the
closer by the fact that in the years which had passed
since we had last seen each other we had both known
much sorrow and bereavement. She was much
gratified when I looked at her arm after the first
greetings were over, and asked, ' Where is the bracelet
you used to wear ? I remember " Dieu vous garde "
was graven on it.'