usual, his art to which he resorted to break down the barrier.
In a daintily executed drawing he depicted the Leipziger Strasse coterie as a real wheel, the hub formed by Felix in a Scotch costume (an allusion to the journey he was about to undertake) and occupied with his music, while the spokes were composed of the various members of the little society, two and two, with costumes and attributes suggested by the nicknames which they had bestowed upon each other. Fanny and Rebecca, embracing, each holding a sheet of music, formed one spoke, while upon the outside of the wheel appeared Hensel himself, bound like Ixion, one end of the chain which fettered him being held in the hand of Fanny, who seemed about to draw him into the charmed circle. This bright little plea had its due effect, and Hensel soon became one of the most animating members of the Order of The Wheel.
The formal betrothal took place in January, 1829, a month before Felix's journey to England, so that between her brother's near departure and her own approaching marriage, Fanny's days passed in unusual excitement.
"We are going to send you Felix," she wrote to the sympathetic Klingemann. "He has left himself a beautiful memorial here by two crowded representations of the Passion for the benefit of the poor. What used to appear to us as a dream, to be realized in the far-off future times, has now become real: the 'Passion' has been given to the public, and is everybody's property. Before I can tell you more about it, there are other subjects—Felix's journey and my engagement; and I really should not know in this throng of events how to begin, if I made this at all a matter of reflection. So then. Your last letter, in which, not guessing what has happened here, you gave us a minute description of all the misery and ridicule of the affianced state, has amused us exces-
