could exceed the delight with which the young Countess dropped into the calm mode of life of the small town of the Hague, far removed from the contentions and excitement of operatic life, but also from the turmoils of politics, and the agitations of the great capitals of Europe. Unlike so many other denizens of the stage, in her privacy there never was observed in the manners of Madame de Rossi the slightest trace of her habitual avocations. At the Hague, whether in the intercourse of the courtly personages, or in the calm enjoyment of beautiful scenery and rural diversions, no thought but of the present appeared ever to intrude upon the memory of one, since her earliest years, accustomed to sway the audiences of every capital, as if it were with the wand of an enchanter—the crowds alternately hushed to dead silence—a moment later excited to the loudest and most enthusiastic applause. But from the moment that Madame de Rossi left the stage, up to the hour when she was compelled to return to it, she ever appeared, like Thomson's Patroness—only