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last illness which, he says, may well be imminent. I am not writing as he suggested, for I wish no company now, having had none in the last years. But it seems wise to convey to you the warning he has given me so that you will have had notice .
    Your mother, Virginia Maclaren
    Much disturbed, Robert booked passage for himself on the first ship sailing to Wilhelmshaven, the Kaiser Wilhelmder Grosse , I think it was. We were not in a position to afford two passages, he said. I agreed: Virginia Maclaren needed Robert unaccompanied by his wife. Two days before he was to sail, a cable came for Robert from the coroner of the city of Frankfurt informing him of his mother’s death. Sometime later a long letter arrived from an attorney-at-law describing the contents of Virginia Maclaren’s will. Her husband having predeceased her, she left her small estate from him to her sons Burns and Logan. To her youngest son, Robert, and wife, Caroline, were to be given her personal effects and her clothing. To the Hoch Conservatory, with her gratitude for the fine training it had given to her son, the composer Robert Glencoe Maclaren, she gave all her books and the manuscripts in her possession of his early works, including the one most dear to her, Opus 3, Barcarolle pour pianoforte , dedicated A ma chère maman .
    Boston was growing too much for Robert. He talked often of finding a quiet place in the country in which to live and work. I still loved the city, having renewed acquaintance with some of my school friends, visiting the Museum of Fine Arts with them and with Elizabeth, lunching often in the downtown shops. I went each week to the Boston Public Library, where there were afternoon lectures on the most recent books. Sunday mornings Elizabeth and I went to the Unitarian church together.
    But Robert was restless because of the demands upon his time. He became increasingly short with his pupils, especially with young Paul Brewster, who was advancing so fast that it seemed to me to be in direct disproportion to Robert’s patience with him. Robert always referred to him as Master Brewster, suggesting by the designation that he was far too young for opinions, of an age only to listen and then do as he was told.
    I must tell you more about him. Paul had been coming to Robert for some months when we decided to find a place in the country. Working as hard as he did, Robert had lost weight. In the first three months of that year he had gone on tour, performing, lecturing, conducting his work and the music of his admired European masters, Liszt, Mozart, Beethoven. He came home exhausted from these trips. On lesson days he would lie on his couch through most of the morning, write almost nothing, storing up his meager supply of energy against the arrival of the precocious Master Brewster.
    Paul Brewster at eleven still dressed as a young boy, in dark knickers, a silk shirt, a black silk tie. Twice each week, accompanied by his mother, he came to our door. When I opened the door to their ring, his mother would dip into a small curtsy, as I had not seen it done since the peasant women in Germany, greet me in a language I did not understand, and then disappear.
    Robert told me she was Hungarian. Paul was her only child. In her eyes she and her son were sentenced to exile, living in the United States until the time came for Mr. Brewster’s firm to send him back to Budapest, where they had met and where Paul was born. To her, Boston was a tomb, a cell, a cage, she had told Robert, who understood enough Hungarian for those words. Having arranged for Paul’s lessons, and unburdening herself of these few details of autobiography, she made no other explanations. Her sole function became the delivery of the small genius, her son, to our house, and his retrieval an hour later.
    In that year, because of Paul’s avidity and skill, Robert sometimes instructed him far longer than his allotted hour. The boy seemed to consume the music he