forces and then by the armed attack of the kinsmen of the murdered man.  When the avengers of the presumed treachery penetrate into the chapel and call upon the murderer to declare himself, the horrified lord of the manor points towards his daughter who, turning away from her bridegroom, falls lifeless by the coffin of her victim.  This nocturnal drama, through which ran reminiscences of Leubald und Adelaide (the work of my far-off boyhood), I wrote in the darkest vein, but in a more polished and more noble style, disdaining all light-effects, and especially all operatic embellishments.  Tender passages occurred here and there all the same, and Weinlich, to whom I had already shown the beginning of my work on my return to Leipzig, praised me for the clearness and good vocal quality of the introduction I had composed to the first act; this was an Adagio for a vocal septette, in which I had tried to express the reconciliation of the hostile families, together with the emotions of the wedded couple and the sinister passion of the secret lover.  My principal object was, all the same, to win my sister Rosalie’s approval.  My poem, however, did not find favour in her eyes:  she missed all that which I had purposely avoided, insisted on the ornamentation and development of the simple situation, and desired more brightness generally.  I made up my mind in an instant:  I took the manuscript, and without a suggestion of ill-temper, destroyed it there and then.  This action had nothing whatever to do with wounded vanity.  It was prompted merely by my desire honestly to prove to my sister how little I thought of my own work and how much I cared for her opinion.  She was held in great and loving esteem by my mother and by the rest of our family, for she was their principal breadwinner:  the important salary she earned as an actress constituted nearly the whole income out of which my mother had to defray the household expenses.  For the sake of her profession she enjoyed many advantages at home.  Her part of the house had been specially arranged so that she should have all the necessary comfort and peace for her studies; on marketing days, when the others had to put up with the simplest fare, she had to have the same dainty food as usual.  But more than any of these things did her charming gravity and her refined way of speaking place her above the younger children.  She was thoughtful and gentle and never joined us in our rather loud conversation.  Of course, I had been the one member of the family who had caused the greatest anxieties both to my mother and to my motherly sister, and during my life as a student the strained relations between us had made a terrible impression on me.  When therefore they tried to believe in me again, and once more showed some interest in my work, I was full of gratitude and happiness.  The thought of getting this sister to look kindly upon my aspirations, and even to expect great things of me, had become a special stimulus to my ambition.  Under these circumstances a tender