A Nest of Linnets

By Frank Frankfort Moore
Author of “I Forbid the
Banns,” “The Jessamy Bride,”
“The Fatal Gift,” “According
to Plato,” Etc., Etc.

WITH 16 ILLUSTRATIONS
BY J. JELLICOE

London: HUTCHINSON & CO
Paternoster Row 1901

PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY, LD.
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

“Dick—Dick,” she gasped, “a dreadful thing has happened!”

Frontispiece]

[page [350].

Contents

CHAPTER I

“This will never do, Betsy,” said Mr. Linley, shaking his head. “Sir Joshua calls you Saint Cecilia, but ’twere a misnomer if you do not sing the phrase better than you have just sung it. ‘She drew an angel down’: let that be in your mind, my dear. There is no celestial being that would move a pinion to help a maiden who implored its aid in so half-hearted a way. Let us try again. One, two, three——”

“‘Angels, ever bright and fair,’”

sang Miss Linley.

Her father sprang from the harpsichord.

“Gracious powers, madam! the angels are not in the next room—they are not even in Pierrepont Street, take my word for it; they are in heaven, and heaven, let me tell you, is a very long way from Bath!” he cried. “Give forth the ‘Angels’ as if you meant to storm the ears of heaven with your cry. Think of it, girl—think that you are lost, eternally lost, unless you can obtain help that is not of earth. Stun their ears, madam, with the suddenness of your imploration, and let the voice come from your heart. Betsy, that smile is not in the music. If Maestro Handel had meant a smile to illuminate the part, take my word for it he would have signified it by a bar of demi-semi-quavers, followed by semi-quavers and quavers. Good heavens, madam! do you hope to improve upon Handel?”

“Ah, father, do not ask too much of me to-night; I am tired—anxious. Why, only last week a highwayman——”

Miss Linley glanced, eagerly listening, toward the window, as if she fully expected to see the mask of a highwayman peering between the blinds.

“Betsy, I am ashamed of you!” said her father. “What stuff is this? Is there any highwayman fool enough to collect fiddles? Do you fancy that a boy with a fiddle tucked under his arm is in any peril of a bullet?”

“But they may affright the child.”

“Child? Child? Who is the child? What! Do you think that because you have not seen your brother since he was fourteen, the four years that have passed can have made no impression on him?”

“I suppose he will have grown.”

“You may be sure that he will be able to defend himself without drawing either his sword or his fiddle. To your singing, Betsy. Go back to the recitative.”

“It would be a terrible thing to find that he had outgrown his affection for us. I have heard that in Italy——”

“Still harping on my daughter’s brother! Come, Miss Linnet, you shall have your chance. You shall fancy that your prayer is uttered on behalf of your brother.

‘Angels, ever bright and fair,
Take, oh, take him to your care.’

Now shall the angels hear for certain. Come, child; one, two——”

“‘Angels——’”

sang Miss Linley.

“Brava!” cried her father sotto voce, as the sound thrilled through the room and there was a suggestion of an answering vibration from the voice of the harpsichord.

“‘Angels, ever bright and fair,
Take, oh, take me——’”

The harpsichord jingled alone. The girl’s voice failed. She threw herself into a chair, and, covering her face with her hands, burst into a passion of sobbing.

“Oh, if he does not arrive after all—if some accident has happened—if—if——”

The apprehensions which she was too much overcome to name were emphasised in the glance that she cast at her father. Her eyes, the most marvellous wells of deep tenderness that ever woman possessed, at all times suggested a certain pathetic emotion of fear, causing every man who looked into their depths to seek to be her protector from the danger they seemed to foresee; but at this moment they appeared to look straight into the face of disaster.

“If I could translate that expression of your face into music, I should be the greatest musician alive,” said her father.

In a second the girl was on her feet, uttering a little sound of contempt. She began pacing the floor excitedly, her long white muslin dress flowing from her high waist in waves.

“Ah, always this art—always this art!” she cried. “Always the imitation—always the pitiful attempt to arouse an artificial emotion in others, and never to have an hour of true emotion oneself, never an hour of real life, never an hour apart from the artifices of Art,—that is the life which you would have me to lead. I hate it! I hate it! Oh, better a day—an hour—a minute of true tenderness than a long lifetime spent in shamming emotion!”

“Shamming? Shamming? Oh, my Elizabeth!” said the musician in a voice full of reproach.

“Shamming! Shamming!” she cried. “I think that there is no greater sham than music. The art of singing is the art of shamming. I try to awaken pity in the breast of my hearers by pretending that I am at the point of death and anxious for the angels to carry me off, yet all the time I care nothing for the angels, but a good deal for my brother Tom, who is coming home to-night. Oh, father, father, do not try to teach me any more of this tricking of people into tears by the sound of my voice. Dear father, let me have this one evening to myself—to live in my own world—my own world of true tears, of true feeling, of true joy. Let me live until to-morrow the real life of the people about us, who have not been cursed by Heaven with expressive voices and a knowledge of the trick of drawing tears by a combination of notes.”

She had flung herself down at his knees and was pressing one of his hands to her face, kissing it.

“Betsy, you are not yourself this evening,” he said in a voice that was faltering on the threshold of a sob.

“Nay, nay; ’tis just this evening that I am myself,” she cried. “Let me continue to be myself just for one evening, dear father. Let me—— Ah!”

She had given a little start, then there was a breathless pause, then, with a little cry of delight, she sprang to her feet and rushed to the window.

Her father had rushed to the second window with just such another cry.

Hearing it she turned to him in amazement, with the edge of the blind that she was in the act of raising still in her hand. She gave a laugh, pointing a finger of her other hand at him, while she cried:

“Ah, you are a father after all!”

His head was within the blind, and he was shutting off with his hands the light of the candles of the room while he peered into the darkness, so that the reproach passed unheeded.

Before she had put her face to the pane her father had dropped the blind that he was holding back.

“Good lud! how the lad has grown!” he said in an astonished whisper.

“Tom! ’tis Tom himself!” cried Betsy, turning from the window and making for the door.

There was a sound of merry voices and many shouts of children’s welcome downstairs—a stamping of feet on the stairs, a stream of questions in various tones of voice, a quiet answer or two, a children’s quarrel in the passage as a boy tried to run in front of a girl. Betsy flung wide the door, crying:

“Tom, brother Tom!”

In another second he was in her arms, kissing her face and being kissed by her without the exchange of a word.

The other members of the family of Linley stood by, the father slightly nervous, fingering an invisible harpsichord, the brothers and sisters callous only when they were not nudging one another lest any detail of the pathetic scene of the meeting of the eldest brother and sister should pass unnoticed.

“Hasn’t he grown!” remarked Mrs. Linley. Some of the flour of the pie which she had been making was on the front of her dress and one of the sleeves. She had transferred a speck or two to her son’s travelling-cloak.

“He hasn’t shaken hands with father yet,” said Master Oziah with the frankness of observant childhood.

“He doesn’t mind; he’s too big for father to thwack!” whispered Master Willie.

“Oh, Tom!—but it was my fault—all my fault!” cried Betsy, releasing her brother, and passing him on to their father almost with the air of introducing the two.

For a moment the musician felt the aloofness of the artist.

“Father—caro padre!” said the boy, who had just returned from Italy.

“Son Tom,” said the father, giving his cheek to be kissed, while he pressed the hand that the boy held out to him.

“What has he brought us, I wonder?” remarked little Oziah to Willie in a moderately low tone.

“Nothing that’s useful, I hope,” said Willie. “People have no business bringing home useful presents.”

“I can’t believe that these big girls are the little sisters I left at home when I set out on my travels,” said Tom, when he had thrown off his travelling-cloak. “Polly? Oh, she is very pretty—yes, in her own way; and I daresay she is as pert as ever.”

“And she needs all her pertness to keep her head above water in such a household!” said Polly.

“But Betsy—oh, what an English sound Betsy has—far sweeter than Bettina, I’ll swear! Oh, Bacco, Betsy is our beauty,” said Tom, looking critically at the blushing girl before him.

“Psha! everybody knows that,” said Polly. “We don’t stand in need of a traveller’s opinion on so plain a matter.”

“You, Tom, are as like Betsy now as two—two roses that have grown on the same stem,” said Mr. Linley.

“Then I cannot without boasting say another word about her beauty,” laughed Tom, making a very Italian bow to the sister whom he loved.

He undoubtedly bore a striking resemblance to her. His complexion was just as exquisitely transparent as hers, and his eyes had the same expression, the same timorous look, that suggested the eyes of a beautiful startled animal—the most wonderful eyes that had ever been painted by Gainsborough.

“And her voice—has it also improved?” asked Tom, turning to their father with the air of an impresario making an inquiry of a trusted critic.

“Look at her face, boy; look in her eyes, and then you will know what I mean when I say that her voice is no more than the expression of her face made audible,” said Mr. Linley. “Look well at her this evening, my son; you will appreciate her beauty now that it is still fresh in your eyes; to-morrow you will have begun to get used to it. Brothers cease to be impressed with the beauty of their sisters almost as quickly as husbands do with the beauty of their wives.”

“Tom is so like Betsy, there is no danger of his forgetting that she is beautiful,” said Polly.

Tom gave a little frown, then a little laugh. His laugh was just as sweet as Betsy’s: both suggested a campanile.

“You have made her a great singer, I hear, sir,” he remarked, when he had kissed her again—this time on the hand.

“She was born a great singer: I have only made her a great artist,” said the father. Then noticing her frown, he cried in quite another tone: “But how is’t with you, my fine fellow? Have you proved yourself to be a genius or only an artist?”

“Ah, you remember how I replied to the bishop who had heard Betsy sing, and thought it only civil to inquire if I was musical also: ‘Yes, sir, we are all geniuses’?”

“It has become the household jest,” said Polly. “But my own belief is, that mother is the only genius among us; you shall taste one of her pies before you are an hour older. If you say that you tasted a better one in all Italy, you will prove yourself no judge of cookery.”

“I should eat that pie even if it should contain not four-and-twenty blackbirds, but as many nightingales—or linnets. Ah, you remember, Betsy, how the name ‘Miss Linnet’ remained with you? Who was it that first called you Miss Linnet?”

“That were a question for the Society of Antiquaries,” said Betsy, “and the bird we are all thinking of is a pie. Hurry to your room, Tom, or I vow there will not be left so much as a clove for you. You knew Polly’s appetite; well, it has improved to the extent of an octave and a half since.”

“Corpo di Bacco! I have no inclination to play second fiddle to an appetite of such compass!” cried Tom, hurrying from the room.

“I sing as Miss Cormorant in the bills when Betsy appears as Miss Linnet,” cried Polly from the lobby.

And then they all talked of Tom—all except the mother, who had gone downstairs to the kitchen. How Tom had grown! How good it was of him to remember through all the stress of foreign travel and foreign study, the household characteristics of the Linleys, of 5, Pierrepont Street, Bath! It seemed so strange—just as strange as if a stranger had come into the house showing himself acquainted with the old family jests. And he had not even forgotten that Polly was pert! Polly held her head high at the thought that he had not forgotten her pertness. How noble it was of him! And yet he must have had a great many more important details to keep in his head.

Maria was thinking of the possibility of a brooch being among the luggage of her newly returned brother—a real Italian brooch, with perhaps a genuine yellow topaz in it, or perhaps a fascinating design done in mosaic, or a shell cameo of the head of Diana, or some other foreign goddess. Little Maria had been thinking of this brooch for some weeks. At times she could scarcely hope that so great a treasure should ever escape the notice of those lines of banditti, who, according to reports that had reached her, contested the passage of any article of value across the Italian frontier. But even admitting the possibility of its safe arrival in England, would not the news of its coming be passed round from highwayman to highwayman until the last chance of its reaching her had fled? Then there were the perils of innkeepers, of inquisitive postboys, of dishonest porters. She had heard of them all, and thus was for weeks in a condition of nervousness quite unusual to her. And now the dreadful thought came to her: “Perhaps he has brought the brooch to Polly, and only a book to me!”

She looked with eager, searching eyes at Polly, and felt sure that she detected on her sister’s face the expression of a girl who has secret intelligence that a brooch is about to be presented to her. She hoped that she would be strong enough to resist the temptation to pinch Polly. She had no confidence in Polly’s self-control, however, should the book fall to Polly’s lot.

And thus they all trooped downstairs to supper, and the moment they had seated themselves there arose one septet of joyful exclamations, for between the knife and fork of every one lay a neat parcel wrapped up in cotton-wool and silken paper.

And Maria’s was a brooch—a beautiful mosaic design of the Pillar of Trajan.

And nobody had received anything that could possibly be called useful, so every one was happy.

And when Tom entered, after a dramatic interval, he was assailed on all sides by exclamations of gratitude. But he put his fingers in his ears for a few moments, and only removed them to be able more freely to repel the attacks made upon him by the girls. He could only receive one kiss at a time, though he did make a masterful attempt to take the two elders as a concerto allegro movement; the others he treated as a scherzo. He had the lordly air of the patron who flings his guineas about: the Italian jewellery had made a deep inroad upon a lira; but he was a generous man, and he loved his family. But his mother, being a thrifty soul—Mr. Foote thought her miserly—shook her head. She felt that he had been too lavish, not knowing anything about Italian jewellery.

CHAPTER II

“‘The greatest singer in England.’ Yes, that is what I heard,” said Tom, patting Betsy’s hand, which he held affectionately in his own. He had made quite an art of fondling hands, having been for four years in Italy. The family had returned to the drawing-room after supper, but as Mr. Linley and his son had begun to talk about music, the younger members had escaped to another apartment, the better to push on a nursery quarrel as to the respective value of their presents. The novelty of a newly returned elder brother was beginning to decline; he had eaten of the pie just as they had eaten of it, and now he was beginning to talk quite easily of music, when they had fully expected him to tell them some thrilling stories of Italian brigands full of bloodshed.

“She has sung better than any singer in England,” said the father; “but that does not make her the greatest singer.”

“Pacchierotti is the best critic in the world, and he told a company in my hearing three months ago that there is no singer in England who can compare with Miss Linley,” said Tom. “Why, the great Agujari herself allowed that in oratorio she could never produce the same impression as our Miss Linnet.”

“She spoke the truth, then, though she is an Italian,” said Mr. Linley.

“Ah, let us talk about something else,” cried Betsy. “Why should we talk of music within the first hour of Tom’s return to us? Surely we might have one evening of pleasure.”

Tom ceased fondling her hand and looked seriously into her face. And now the expression in their eyes was not the same. The soft, beseeching look that she cast at him was very different from the serious glance—it had something of reproach in it—with which he regarded her.

“We talk of music because there is nothing else worth talking about in the world,” said he, and she saw with dismay the strange light that burned in the depths of his eyes, while his glance passed suddenly beyond her face—passed away from her face, from the room, from the world altogether. She knew what that light meant, and she shuddered. She had seen it in Mr. Garrick’s face when he was playing in Hamlet; she had seen it in Mr. Gainsborough’s face when he was painting the picture of her and her brother; she had seen it in the plain face of little Dr. Goldsmith when he had repeated in her hearing the opening lines of his sublime poem, “The Traveller”; she had seen it in the face of Mr. Burke when he was making a speech. She knew what it meant—she knew that that light was the light which men call genius, and she shuddered. She knew that to have genius is only to have a greater capacity for suffering than other men. What she did not know was that people saw the same light in her eyes when she was singing, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.”

“What do you say?” cried the father, springing from his chair with a hand upraised. “What do you say, my son?”

“I say, sir, that we talk of music because there is nothing else in the world worth talking about,” said Tom stoutly.

With a cry of delight the father threw himself into his son’s arms.

“Thank God for that—thank God for that!” he murmured. “You have not worked in vain, my boy; I have not prayed in vain. The truth has been revealed to you. You are my son.”

“Can any one doubt that this is the truth?” said the boy.

Betsy saw that he was careful to avoid looking in her direction. That was why she felt that he was addressing her personally.

“No, no!” she said, catching his hand again. “No, no, dear Tom; no one in this house will doubt that music is the only subject worth a word, a thought. It is our life. Is there any better life? How we can gladden the hearts of all who come near us! Even at Oxford—I have sung a great deal at Oxford, you know—I have seen the tears upon the faces of those men—the most learned men in the world. Just think of a poor ignorant girl like myself being able to move a learned man to tears! Oh, there is nothing worth a thought in the world save only music. Let me sing to you now, Tom; you will be able to say if I have improved.”

Tom’s face glowed.

“We have wasted an hour over supper,” he said, and there was actually mournfulness in his voice. Happily his mother, the pie-maker, was not present; she had run from the room at the first mention of music. “I always think that eating is a huge waste of time. We might have been singing an hour ago. And what think you of this new instrument—the forte-piano—father? I have heard it affirmed that it will make even the harpsichord become obsolete. I laughed, having heard you play the harpsichord.”

“Burney talks much about the forte-piano,” said the father. “And Mr. Bach, who has been giving his concerts in the Thatched House in St. James’s Street, has surprised us all by his playing upon its keyboard; but, my son, ’tis less refined than my harpsichord.”

“No one will ever be able to invent any instrument that will speak to one as does your violin, Tom,” said Betsy. “You need have no fear that your occupation will soon be gone.”

Tom smiled.

“The violin is the only instrument that has got a soul,” said he. “Only God can create a soul. Doubtless God could make another instrument with a soul, to speak direct to the souls of men, but beyond doubt He has not done so yet.”

“And now you shall awaken all the soul which is in yours, and make it reveal its celestial mysteries to us,” said the father. “I am more than anxious to learn how you have progressed. I dare swear that you have not wasted your time in Italy?”

“Heaven only knows if I have done all that was in my power to do,” said the boy, after a curious pause.

He was staring at the furthest corner of the ceiling while he spoke. Then he got upon his feet and walked across the room and back again without speaking; then he threw himself down upon a sofa with a sigh.

“Now and again—only now and again—father, I think that I succeed in reaching the soul of the thing,” he said. “After long waiting and working and longing I sometimes hear its voice speaking to me, and then I feel that I am very near to God. Surely music is the voice of God speaking to the soul of man—speaking its message of infinite tenderness—gladness that is the gladness of heaven.... I think I have heard it, but not always—only at rare intervals. And I took up the violin when I was a child as if it were a simple thing—an ordinary instrument, and not a thing of mystery—a living thing!”

“You have learned the truth since those days!” cried the delighted father.

“The truth? Who is there alive that has learned the whole truth—the whole mystery of the violin?” said the boy. “I think that I have crept a little nearer to it during these years; that is all that I dare to say.”

“You are a musician,” said the father, and the tears of joy that were in his eyes were also in his voice. “The true musician is the one who fears to speak with assurance. He is never without his doubts, his fears, his hours of depression, as well as his moments of celestial joy. I thank heaven that I am the father of a musician.”

“I thought that I was a musician until I heard Pugnani,” said the son. “Hearing him showed me that I had not even crossed the threshold of the temple. Shall I ever forget that day? I was sent by my master with a message to his house on that hill where the olive-trees mingle with the oranges and the vines. I remember how the red beams of the sun at its setting swept across the Arno, and crept among the olives, and blazed upon the oranges till they seemed like so many lamps half hidden among the glossy foliage.”

“Would that I had been with you!” said Betsy in a twilight voice.

“Ah, if you had but been with me, you would have learned more of music in half an hour than you could acquire elsewhere in a lifetime,” said her brother.

“He played for you?” said the father.

“Yes, he played. The words are easily said. The villa is a lovely one, and when I reached the entrance, walking through the orange-grove, the sun had sunk, and from a solitary oleander a nightingale had begun to sing in the blue twilight. I stood listening to it, and feeling how truly Handel had interpreted the bird’s song.”

“Betsy shall sing you the aria ‘Sweet Bird’ when you have told us your story,” said Mr. Linley.

“I entered during the first pause, for there was no bell to ring—my master had told me not to look for a bell or to call for a servant; the Maestro does not live as other men. The hall was empty; but I had received my instructions to wait there, and I waited until a man strolled in after me from the garden. He wore the common blouse of the Italian peasant, and carried a pruning-knife in one hand and a huge bunch of grapes in the other. I took him for a gardener, and the low bow which he made to me confirmed this impression. In replying to his courteous ‘Buona sera, signore,’ I told him that if he should chance to find Signore Pugnani in the villa, I would thank him greatly if he would let him know that I brought a message from Maestro Grassi. ‘Signore Pugnani will be here presently,’ said he. I thanked him, and, wishing to be civil, I said: ‘His garden does you great credit—you are, I venture to think, his gardener?’ ‘Alas! sir,’ said he, smiling,‘I am a much humbler person than his gardener. I have, it is true, dared to cut a bunch of grapes, but I am even now trembling at my boldness. I shall have to face the gardener before night, for he is sure to miss it. You are one of Maestro Grassi’s pupils, sir?’ he added; and when I assented, ‘I, too, am learning to play the violin,’ he said. ‘It is very creditable to you to wish to master the instrument,’ said I. ‘You must have many opportunities in this household of hearing good music. Your master is, I believe, one of the greatest composers. I am overcome with admiration of his night piece—La Voce della Notte, he has called it.’ ‘I have heard him play it,’ said he—‘at least I think I recollect it. I fancy I should recall it fully if you were to play a few bars of the prelude.’ He picked up a violin which, with its bow, was lying on a cushion on the settee of the hall, and began tuning it. When he had satisfied himself that the instrument was in tune, he handed it to me. ‘Have you memory sufficient to play a few bars of the Andante?’ he inquired. ‘Oh, I can play the thing throughout,’ said I eagerly. I prided myself on having mastered the Andante, and I did not hesitate to play it. In the dimness of that twilight in the hall, through which the scents of the orange-trees floated—I can perceive the delicate perfume of that Italian evening still—I played the Andante.”

The narrator paused, and then, lying back in his chair, he laughed heartily. His father smiled; his sister was grave.

“You played it creditably, I hope? You were in the presence of the composer, I begin to see,” said Mr. Linley.

“Of course the stranger was Signore Pugnani, but I did not know it until he had taken the instrument from me,” said the son. “He was courteous in his compliments upon my performance. ‘I am but a pupil of that wonderful instrument,’ said he, ‘but I clearly perceive that you treat it with reverence. Would I tire you if I were to submit to your criticism my recollection of La Voce della Notte, sir?’ I replied, of course, that he should find in me an indulgent critic, and I made up my mind to be indulgent. And then—then—he held the bow for a long time over the string—I scarce knew when he began to make it speak. I scarce knew whence the sound came. All the mystery of night was in that single note; it was an impassioned cry for rest—the rest brought by night. While it sounded I seemed to hear the far-off cry of the whole creation that travaileth, yearning for the rest that is the consummation of God’s promises. Again he moved the bow, and that wailing note increased.... Ah, how can I express the magic of that playing?... I tell you that in a moment before my eyes the dim hall was crowded with figures. I sat in amazement watching them. They were laughing together in groups. Lovely girls in ravishing dishevelment flung roses up to the roof of the hall, and the blooms, breaking there, sent a shower of rosy perfumed petals quivering and dancing like butterflies downward. Children ran to catch the frail falling flakes, and clapped their hands. Men old and young sang in varying harmonies, and at intervals of singing quaffed sparkling wine from cups of glass. Suddenly, while all were in the act of drinking, the goblets fell with a crash upon the pavement, and the red wine flowed like blood over the mosaics of the floor. When the crash of the glasses had rung through the hall there was a moment of deathly silence, and then, far away, I heard once more the wailing of a great multitude. It drew closer and closer until men, women, and children in the hall joined in that chorus of ineffable sadness—that cry of the world for the rest which has been promised. They lay on the pavement before my eyes, wailing—wailing....

“Silence followed. The hall became dark in a moment; I could not have seen anything even if my eyes had been dry. They were not dry: that second wail had moved me as I had never before been moved. The darkness was stifling. I felt overwhelmed by it, but I could not stir. I remained bound to my seat by a spell that I could not break. But just as I felt myself struggling for breath, a long ray of moonlight slipped aslant the pavement of the hall, and the atmosphere became less dense. In a few moments the hall was filled with moonlight, and I saw that, just where the light streamed, there was growing a tree—a tree of golden fruit that shone in the moon’s rays. A little way off a fountain began to flash, and its sparkling drops fell musically into the basin beneath the fantastic jets. All at once a nightingale burst into rapturous song among the foliage. Ah, that song!—the soul of tranquillity, of a yearning satisfied! While I listened in delight I breathed the delicate dewy odours which seemed to come from the glossy leaves that hid the nightingale from sight.

“I do not know how long I listened—how long I tasted of the delight of that sensation of repose. I only know that I was on my feet straining to catch the last exquisite notes that seemed to dwindle away and become a part of the moonlight, when I heard a voice say:

“‘I find that my memory is trustworthy. I have played the whole of the Voce. I hope that I find in you a lenient critic, sir.’

“But I was on my knees at his feet, and unable to utter a word. Ah, it is the recollection of that playing which makes me feel that, even though I give up my life to the violin, I shall never pass beyond the threshold of the study.”

“Sir,” said the father, “you have told us of the effect produced upon your imagination by the playing of a great musician. But what you have proved to us is not that Signore Pugnani is a great musician, but that you are one. Give me your hand, my son; you are a great musician.”

Betsy wiped her eyes and sighed.

CHAPTER III

It was some time before Tom caught up his violin and began to tune it. His father had seated himself at the harpsichord, and Betsy had astonished her brother by her singing of Handel’s “Sweet Bird.” He affirmed that she was the greatest singer in the world. All that Pacchierotti and the Agujari had said about her singing failed to do full justice to it, he declared. He had heard singers in Italy who were accounted great, but the greatest of them might sit at her feet with profit.

“She will sing ‘Angels, ever bright and fair’ with true effect now, I promise you,” said the father, with a shrewd smile.

“Ah, yes! now—now!” said the girl; and before her father had touched the keys of the harpsichord she had flashed into the recitative.

Her brother clasped his hands over his bosom, and, with his eyes fixed on her face, listened in amazement. She had become the embodiment of the music. She was the spirit of the song made visible. All the pure maidenly ecstasy, all the virginal rapture was made visible. Before she had ended the recitative, every one who ever heard that lovely singer was prepared to hear the rustling of the angels’ wings. It was the greatest painter of the day who heard her sing the sublime melody, and painted his greatest picture—one of the greatest pictures ever painted in the world—from her.

“Saint Cecilia—Saint Cecilia, and none other,” said Sir Joshua Reynolds. “She sings and draws the angels down when she calls upon them.”

But the jingling harpsichord!

“It is unworthy of her,” cried her father, taking his hands off the keys before playing the prelude to the air.

In an instant her brother had caught up his violin; he had been tuning it while they had been talking—and began to improvise an obbligato with the confidence of a master of the instrument. And then with the first sound of the harpsichord came that exquisite voice of passionate imploration:

“‘Angels, ever bright and fair,
Take, oh, take me to your care.’”

She had never sung it so well before. She had never before known how beautiful it was. And now, while she sang, the violin obbligato helping her onward, she became aware of distant angel-voices answering her—soft and low they were at first, but gradually they drew nigh, increasing in volume and intensity, until at the end of the first part the air was thrilling with the sound of harps, and through all the joyous confidence of the last phrases came that glorious harp-music, now floating away into the distance, and anon flashing down with the sound of mysterious musical voices in response to her singing. At the last she could see the heavens opened above her, and a flood of melody floated down, and then dwindled away when her voice had become silent.

There was a silence in the room. Even the father, who thought he knew all the magic that could be accomplished on the fourth string, was dumb with amazement and delight.

“Angels, ever bright and fair,
Take, oh, take me to your care!”

[page [24].

“Ah, my sweet sister,” said the violin-player, “your singing has led me to perceive something of the beauty of that aria. I think I caught a glimpse of the country to which it leads one. Thank you, my Betsy. Neither of us can go very far beyond the point that we have reached to-night.”

“That point has never been reached in the world before!” cried the father. “I know what has been done, and I give you my word that here, in this room, a point of musical expression has been reached beyond what the greatest of our musicians have ever aimed at.”

“What Tom said when a child has turned out true,” said Polly. “Yes, we are all geniuses, and the half of Bath may be seen outside the house enjoying a free concert.”

Tom drew one of the blinds and looked out; there was a crowd of some hundreds of persons in the street. The oil lamps shone upon the rich brocades of ladies who had been in both the Assembly Rooms, and upon the gold lace of the fine gentlemen who accompanied them. Richly painted chairs had been set down on the pavement, and the roofs tilted up to allow of the sound of the music reaching the occupants, whose heads, white with powder, sometimes protruded beyond the lacquered brass-work of the brim of their chairs. The linkboys stood with their torches in the roadway, making a lurid background to the scene. The moment that Tom drew back the blind, the yellow light from without flared into the room.

“Cielo!” he cried, lifting up his hands, “Pierrepont Street is turned into a concert-room.”

“The only marvel is that we have not had several visitors,” said his father. “It was widely known through Bath that you were to return to us this evening. I feared that we should not be allowed to have a quiet hour or two to ourselves. The good folk here are as fond of a new sensation as were the Athenians. How can we account for their considerate behaviour to-night?”

Betsy laughed.

“I think I can account for it,” she cried. “Look out again, Tom, and try if you cannot see a Cerberus at the door.”

“A Cerberus?” said he, peering out at the edge of the blind. “I’ faith, I do perceive something that suggests one of the great hounds which I saw at the Hospice of St. Bernard—an enormous mass of vigilance, not over-steady on his legs.”

“A three-decker sort of man, rolling at anchor?” suggested Polly, the pert one.

“An apt description,” said Tom.

“I will not hear a word said against Dr. Johnson,” cried Betsy. “He has kept his promise. When I told him that you were coming home to-day, he said: ‘Madam, though your occupation as a singer entitles every jackanapes to see you for half a crown, still, in order to inculcate upon you the charm of a life of domesticity, I shall prevent your being pestered with busybodies for one night. I shall take care that no eye save that of Heaven sees you kiss your brother on his return.’”

“Dr. Johnson is not without a certain sense of what is delicate, though he may be in one’s company a long time before one becomes aware of it,” said Mr. Linley.

“Betsy did not tell you what he said when she thanked him,” cried Polly. “But he rolled himself to one side, and pursed out his lips in a dreadful way. ‘Tell the truth, Miss Linnet,’ said he at last. ‘Tell the truth: do you indeed welcome my offer, or do you not rather regret that the young rascals—ay, and the old rascals too—will be deprived of the opportunity of having their envy aroused by observing the favours you bestow on the cold lips of a brother?’ Those were his very words.”

“And his very manner, I vow,” laughed her father; and indeed Miss Polly had given a very pretty imitation of the Johnsonian manner.

“Never mind,” said Betsy. “If he only succeeds in keeping away Mrs. Thrale, he deserves all our gratitude.”

And it was actually Mrs. Thrale whom Dr. Johnson was trying to convince that she had no right to enter the Linleys’ house at that moment.

Hearing that Tom Linley was to return after an absence of four years in Italy, and knowing the spirit of impudent curiosity that pervaded the crowds of idlers in Bath, Dr. Johnson had posted himself at the door of 5, Pierrepont Street, when he learned that Tom had reached the house, and he had prevented even those persons who had legitimate business with Mr. Linley from intruding upon the family party.

He was having a difficult task with Mrs. Thrale, for the sprightly little lady had made up her mind to visit the Linleys and have at least one bon mot respecting Tom circulated among the early visitors to the Pump Room before any of her rival gossips had a chance of seeing the youth. But she found herself confronted by the mighty form of Johnson a few yards from the door of their house.

“Dear sir,” she cried, “you are doing yeoman’s service to the family of Linley. Oh, the idle curiosity of the people here! How melancholy is the position of a public character! Every fellow who has ever heard Miss Linley sing fancies he is privileged to enter her house upon the most sacred occasion; and as for your modish young woman, she looks on the Linley family as she does upon the Roman baths—to be freely visited as one of the sights of the place.”

“Madam, you exaggerate,” said Dr. Johnson. “The persons in Bath whose inquisitiveness makes them disregardful of the decencies of life do not number more than a dozen.”

“Ah, sir,” said the lady, “you are charitably disposed.”

“Madam, to suggest that I am charitable were to suggest that I am incapable of taking a just view of a very simple matter, and that, let me tell you, madam, is something which no considerations of charity will prevent my contesting.”

“Dear sir,” said Mrs. Thrale, “you will force me to appeal to your charity at this time on behalf of Mr. Boswell. If you do not permit him to enter the house and bring us a faithful report of young Mr. Linley, a whole day may pass before the Pump Room knows anything of him.”

“Psha! madam, do you know the Pump Room so indifferently as to fancy that it will wait for any report of the young gentleman before forming its own conclusions on the subject of his return?”

“Ah, Dr. Johnson, but Mr. Boswell is invariably so accurate in his reports on everything,” persisted the lady.

Little Mr. Boswell smirked between the cross-fires of the yellow lamplight and the lurid links; he smirked and bowed low beneath the force of the lady’s compliment. He had not a nice ear either for compliment or detraction: he failed to appreciate the whisper of a zephyr of sarcasm.

But his huge patron was not Zephyrus, but Boreas.

“Madam,” he cried, “I allow that Mr. Boswell is unimaginative enough to be accurate; but he is a busybody, and I will not allow him to cross this threshold. List to those sounds, Mrs. Thrale”—Polly in the room upstairs had just begun to sing, with her two sisters, a glee of Purcell—“list to those sounds. What! madam, would you have that nest of linnets disturbed?”

“Is Saul also among the prophets? Oh, ’tis sure edifying to find Dr. Johnson the patron of music,” said the lady with double-edged sweetness.

“Madam, let me tell you that one cannot rightly be said to be a patron of music,” said Dr. Johnson. “Music is an abstraction. One may be a patron of a musician or a painter—nay, I have even heard of a poet having a patron, and dying of him too, because, like a gangrene that proves fatal, he was not cut away in time.”

“And just now you are the patron of the musicians, sir?” said the lady.

“Just now, madam, I am hungry and thirsty. I have a longing to be the patron of your excellent cook, and the still more excellent custodian of your tea-cupboard. Come, Mrs. Thrale, sweet though the sounds of that hymn may be—if indeed it be a hymn and not a jig; but I hope it is a hymn—take my word for it, madam, a hungry man would like better to hear the rattle of crockery.”

“Dear sir, I feel honoured,” cried Mrs. Thrale. “But who will take charge of your nest of linnets in the meantime?”

“Our friend Dr. Goldsmith will be proud of that duty, dear madam,” said Johnson.

“Madam,” said Dr. Goldsmith, “I have my flute in my pocket; if any one tries to enter this house, I swear that I shall play it, and if every one does not fly then, a posse of police shall be sent for. You have heard me play the flute, doctor?”

“Sir,” said Johnson, “when I said that music was of all noises the least disagreeable, I had not heard you play upon your flute.”

“No, sir; for had you heard me, you would not have said ‘least disagreeable’—no, sir; least would not have been the word,” said Goldsmith.

“Pan-pipes would be an appropriate instrument to such a satyr,” said a tall thin gentleman in an undertone to another, when Johnson and Mrs. Thrale had walked away, and Goldsmith had begun to listen in ecstasy to Tom Linley’s playing of Pugnani’s nocturne.

“Ah, friend Horry, you have never ceased to think ill of Dr. Goldsmith since the night you sat beside him at the Academy dinner,” said the other gentleman.

“I think no ill of the man, George,” said Horace Walpole. “Surely a man may call another a scarecrow without malice, if t’other be a scarecrow.”

“’Tis marvellous how plain a fellow seems when he has got the better of one in an argument,” laughed George Selwyn, for he knew that Walpole had not a good word to say for Goldsmith since the former had boasted, on the narrowest ground, of having detected the forgeries of Chatterton, thereby calling for a scathing word or two from Goldsmith, who had just come from the room where the unfortunate boy was lying dead.

The two wits walked on toward the house that Gilly Williams had taken for a month; but before they had gone a dozen yards they were bowing to the ground at the side of a gorgeous chair carried by men wearing the livery of the Duchess of Devonshire, and having two footmen on each side.

The beautiful lady whose head, blazing with jewels, appeared when the hood was raised, caused her folded fan to describe a graceful curve in the direction of Walpole, while she cried:

“You were not at the Assembly to-night, Mr. Walpole.”

“Nay, your Grace, I have scarce left it: we are on the fringe of it still,” replied Walpole.

“Under Miss Linley’s window,” said the duchess.

“Wherever Miss Linley sings and the Duchess of Devonshire listens is the Assembly,” said George Selwyn.

“I have heard of one Orpheus who with his lute drew inanimate things to listen to him,” said the duchess; “Miss Linley seems to have equal powers; for were it otherwise, I should not have seen my Lord Coventry in Pierrepont Street to-night.”

“Your Grace doubted whether the people flocked to Miss Linley’s concerts in the Assembly Rooms to hear her sing or to feast on her beauty,” said Walpole.

“Well, now I confess that I am answered,” said her Grace, “for the singer did not deign to appear even at a window. But I call it a case of gross improvidence for a young woman to be so beautiful of feature, and so divine of voice at the same time. Either of her attractions should be enough for one in a humble position in life. I call it a waste. Now tell me frankly, Mr. Selwyn, is Miss Linley as beautiful as your friend Lady Coventry was—the first of them, I mean.”

“Madam, there have been but three beautiful women in the world; the first was Helen of Troy, the second was Maria Lady Coventry, and the third is——”

“Miss Elizabeth Linley?” cried the duchess when George Selwyn made a pause—a pause that invited a question—the pause of the professed raconteur who fully understands the punctuation of a sentence. “What? Miss Elizabeth Linley?”

“Madam, the third is her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire,” said Selwyn with a bow.

“Oh, sir,” cried the duchess, “you are unkind to offer me such a compliment when I am enclosed in my chair. I protest that you have no right to take me at such a disadvantage. Pray consider that I have sunk to the ground at your feet in acknowledgment of your politeness. But pray note the silence of Mr. Walpole.”

“’Tis the silence of acquiescence, madam,” said Selwyn.

“Pray let Mr. Walpole speak for himself, Selwyn,” said the duchess. “As a rule he is able to speak not only for himself, but for every one else.”

“’Twas but the verse of Mr. Dryden which came into my mind when George spoke of his three beauties, duchess,” said Walpole:

“‘The force of Nature could no further go;
To make a third she joined the other two.’”

“’Tis the compliment of a scholar as well as a wit,” said her Grace—“a double-edged sword, keen as well as polished, which I vow there is no resisting. What return can I make for such favours—a sweet nosegay of favours in full bloom and tied with a riband of the finest brocade? The flowers of compliment are ever more welcome when tied with a riband of wit.”

“O Queen, live for ever!” cried Selwyn.

“Nay, sir, that is not a reply to my question,” said the duchess. “I asked you what return I can make for your compliments?”

“True, madam, and I reply, ‘O Queen, live for ever!’ in other words, give Mr. Gainsborough an order to paint your portrait,” said Mr. Selwyn.

“Ah, now ’tis Mr. Gainsborough whom you are complimenting,” said the duchess. “Alas! that we poor women must be dependent for immortality upon the pigments of a painter!”

“Your Grace is in the happy position of being independent of his pigments except on his canvas,” said Walpole. “But let me join my entreaty to Mr. Selwyn’s. Give to posterity a reflection of the privilege which is enjoyed by us.”

“I vow that the king I feel like to is King Herod,” cried the duchess.

“And with great reason, madam,” said Walpole: “we are the innocents slain by your Grace’s beauty.”

“Nay, that was not the episode that was in my mind,” laughed the lady. “Nay, ’twas t’other one: I offered you a favour, and you, like the daughter of Herodias, have demanded a human head—in pigment. But I have pledged myself, and I will e’en send a note to Mr. Gainsborough in the morning. What! the concert is over? Gentlemen, I trust that you are satisfied with your night’s work?”

“Madam, should it be known that it was George and myself who brought about this happy accident, we should rest secure in the thought that we too shall live among the immortals,” cried Walpole.

“Future generations shall rise up and call us blessed,” said Selwyn.

“And what will Mr. Gainsborough say?” asked the duchess.

“If he were a man like one of us, he would be in despair of ever being able to execute the task which your Grace imposes on him,” said Walpole.

“True, if he were not supported from one day to the next by the thought of being for another hour in your Grace’s presence,” said Selwyn.

The beautiful lady held up both her hands in pretty protest, while she cried:

“If I tarry here much longer, I shall find myself promising to give sittings to Sir Joshua Reynolds and the full company of Academicians; so a good-night to you pair of flatterers. Heaven grant that I get safe home! Your al fresco concert-goers jostle one horribly.”

The two gentlemen bowed while her Grace’s chair was borne on through the sauntering crowd, for the house which had been the centre of the gathering had now become silent, and the candles in the drawing-room were extinguished. The clocks had chimed out the first quarter past eleven—an hour when most Londoners were in bed; but Bath during the eighteenth century was the latest town in England, and long after the duchess’s chair had been borne away, long after Walpole and his friend had sauntered on to Gilly Williams’s; long after Johnson had lectured the saturnine brewer, Mr. Thrale, on the evil of Mr. Thrale’s practice of over-eating (Johnson himself was enough of an anchorite to limit himself when at Streatham to fifteen peaches before breakfast, and an equal number before dinner, and had never been known to swallow more than twenty cups of tea at a sitting); long after Dr. Goldsmith had worried poor Mr. Boswell by pretending to be taking a note of Dr. Johnson’s sayings for the day, having, as he affirmed, an eye to a future biography of the great man; long after Miss Linley had knelt down by her bedside to thank Providence for having restored her dear brother to his home, even though Providence had seen fit to supplant her in her brother’s affection by an abstraction which he called his Art; long after the night had closed upon all these incidents in the beautiful city of Bath, some people were still sauntering through Pierrepont Street.

From the left there sauntered a young man of good figure and excellent carriage. He wore a cloak, and he had tilted his hat over his eyes, in imitation of the prowling young man on the stage. He kept on the dark side of the street and looked furtively round every now and again. He slipped into a deep doorway when almost opposite the house of the Linleys, and stood there with his eyes fixed on the highest windows.

“Sleep, beloved, sleep,” he murmured, with a sentimental turn of his head. “Sleep, knowing naught of the passion that burns in the heart of thy faithful swain, who wakes to watch over thy slumbers.”

He was so absorbed in his rhapsodising that he failed to notice the approach of another young man from the opposite direction to that from which he himself had come. The other was somewhat taller, and his carriage was better displayed by the circumstance of his being uncloaked, and of his walking frankly along the street until he too had reached the dim doorway. Then with a glance up to the windows of the Linleys’ house, he too slipped into that doorway.

He started, finding that another person was there—a man who quickly turned away his head and let his chin fall deep into the collar of his cloak.

“What! Charles?” cried the newcomer. “Why, I left you at home going to your bedroom half an hour ago. What, man, have you turned footpad that you steal out in this fashion and wearing a cloak?”

“I trust, brother, that one may take a quiet walk without having to give an explanation of its purport,” said the first sulkily.

“To be sure—to be sure,” said the other. “I suppose that Joseph, even before he became a patriarch, took many a stroll in the cool of the night through the streets of Thebes—or was it Memphis?—without reproach.”

“For that matter,” cried the first, with some irritation in his voice, “what was your motive in coming hither, brother Dick? Did not you say that you were going to bed also?”

“I—oh, I only came out to search for you, Joseph—I mean Charles,” said the second. “Yes, Jo—Charles, hearing you leave the house by the back, I thought it the duty of a younger brother to see that you did not get into any harm. Good heavens, brother! what would become of the Sheridan family if the elder son were to fall among thieves? Do you think that our patriarchal father would be satisfied if he were shown his Joseph’s cloak saturated with red claret? Come home, Joseph, come home, I entreat of you. You can compose your sonnet to Betsy Linley much more fluently at your desk at home. Besides, father has a rhyming-dictionary—an indispensable work of reference to a lover, Charles.”

“What do you mean, Dick?” said Charles in an aggrieved voice—the aggrieved voice afterwards assumed by the representative of the part of Joseph in The School for Scandal. “Brother, I really am surprised to find you making light of so estimable a family.”

“As the Linleys or the Sheridans—which?” cried Dick. “Oh, man, come home; the girl is asleep hours ago and dreaming of—of you, maybe, Charles. Think of that, man—think of that—dreaming of you! Oh, if you have any appreciation of a true lover’s duty, you will hasten to your bed to return the compliment by dreaming of her.”

Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan put his arm through his brother’s, and Charles suffered himself to be led away to their house on the Terrace Walks, protesting all the time that the man who rushed hastily to conclusions was more to be execrated than the footpad, for the latter was content when he had stolen a man’s purse, whereas the other....

“True—true—quite true, Joseph,” said Dick. “We can make another score or two of those sentiments when we get home. Father has a copy of the ‘Sentiments of all Nations’ as well as a rhyming-dictionary.”

CHAPTER IV

Betsy Linley awoke in the morning with a feeling of having been disappointed about something, and she was disappointed with herself for being so weak as to be conscious of such an impression. In short, she was disappointed with herself for awaking in disappointment. She should have felt gladness, only gladness, to think that the brother, who had ever been so dear to her, had escaped all the perils of the years he had spent among the artistic barbarians of Italy, all the perils of the long journey through the land of brigands to land of highwaymen. No other consideration should have produced any impression on her.

The previous morning she had awakened with the one thought dancing before her, “He will be at home when I next wake in this house!” and it seemed to her then that this was all she required to make her happy. What more than this could she need? If he returned to her side safe and well, what could anything else matter? There was nothing else in the world of sufficient importance in comparison with such an occurrence to be worth a thought. The feeling that he was near her would absorb every thought of her heart, and nothing that might occur afterwards could diminish from the joy of that thought.

Well, he had come—she had felt his kisses on her cheek, and for an hour she had felt that he was her dear brother as he had been in the old days. She felt sure that he would understand her, and, understanding her, sympathise with her. But from the moment that he had taken his violin out of its baize bag—he had nursed the instrument on his knees, as a mother carries her baby, during the entire journey from Italy—from the moment that she had seen that divine light in his eyes, when he drew his bow across the strings, she knew that there was a barrier between them. She felt as a sister feels when a well-beloved only brother returns to her with a wife by his side.

His art—that was what he had brought home with him, and she saw that it held possession of all his heart. She felt that she occupied quite a secondary place in his affections compared with music—that he loved music with the passionate devotion of a lover, while to her he could only give the cold, calculable affection of a brother. She felt all the sting of jealousy which an affectionate sister feels when her brother, in her presence, looks into the eyes of the woman whom he loves and puts his arm about her. She felt all the bitterness of the step-daughter who sees her father smiling as he looks into the eyes of his new wife.

She had hoped that Tom’s home-coming would make her father less exacting than he always had been in regard to her singing—that Tom would take her part when she protested against being forced to sing so constantly in public. Her nature was one of extraordinary sensitiveness, and it was this fact that caused her to be the most exquisite singer of her day. But then it was her possession of this very sensitiveness that caused her to shrink from an audience. It was with real terror that she faced the thousands of people whom her singing delighted. The reflection that her singing delighted every one who heard her gave her no pleasure, and the tumult of applause which greeted her gave her no exultation; it only added to the terror she felt on appearing on a platform. She wept in her room, refusing anything to eat or drink for hours preceding an evening when she had to sing in public. More than once she had actually fainted on reaching the concert-room; and these were the occasions when she had thrilled every one present with the divine charm of her voice.

She was the most sensitive instrument that ever the spirit of music breathed through; but the cruelty of the matter was, that although without this sensitiveness she would never have been able to move the hearts of every man and woman who heard her sing, yet possessing it unfitted her for the rôle of a great singer.

This was the paradox of the life of this woman of genius. The most cruel jest ever perpetrated by Nature was giving this creature the divinest voice that ever made a mortal a little lower than the angels, and at the same time decreeing that it should be an agony for her to exercise her powers as infinitely less gifted women exercise their talents.

It is all to be seen in her face as we can see it on the canvases of Gainsborough and Reynolds—two of the greatest pictures ever painted by the hand of man. If the face of Miss Linley in Gainsborough’s picture is divine, the face of Sir Joshua’s “Saint Cecilia” is sublime. In both one may perceive the shrinking of a sensitive soul from anything less divine than itself.

And her father, an excellent man, who had made himself a musician in spite of many difficulties, insisted on her singing in public as frequently as he thought consistent with the preservation of her voice. He was incapable of understanding such a nature as hers, and she had this fact impressed upon her every day. He would tell her what Handel meant to accomplish in certain of his numbers, and she would listen as in a dream, and then sing the number in her own way, going to the very soul of its mystery, and achieving an effect of which her father had never dreamed. She used to wonder how any one could be content, as her father was, to touch merely upon the surface of the matter and make no attempt to reach the soul underlying it.

Every day she startled him by her revelation of the depths of Handel’s music—the blue profundity of his ocean, the immeasurable azure of his heaven; and sometimes he could not avoid receiving the impression that this daughter, whom he had taught the rudiments of his art, knew a great deal more about it than he did; and he only recovered his position as her master by pointing out her technical mistakes to her: she had dwelt too long on a certain note; the crescendo in the treatment of a certain phrase had not been gradual enough; her finish had been staccato. She must go over the air again.

So it was that he worried her. He was trying to teach a nightingale to sing by playing the flute to it. But the nightingale sang, in spite of his instruction; the nightingale sang, sang, and longed all the time for the wings of a dove, so that she might fly away and be at rest.

She knew that her father was incapable of understanding her sensitiveness, and she had looked forward to the return of her brother, who might help her father to understand. Alas! the instant she saw that strange light in his eyes she knew that she had nothing to hope for from him. And now she was putting on her clothes to begin another day which should be as all the weary days which had gone before—a day of toiling over exercises with her father at the harpsichord, so that her voice should not be wanting in flexibility when she would appear before an audience in the Assembly Rooms on the evening of the next day.

“Oh for the wings of a dove!” her heart was singing, when, pausing for a moment, with her beautiful hair falling over her shoulders, she heard the strains of her brother’s violin floating from the room below. He played the violin beautifully, but.... “Oh for the wings of a dove to fly away and be at rest!”

Mr. Garrick called upon them before they had left the music-room. The children were delighted with Garrick, who could imitate, in such a funny way, their father giving a lesson, and Dr. Johnson assisting by the superiority of his lungs the excellence of his argument on some very delicate question—say, the necessity for building a hospital for spiders which had grown old and past work. This he made the subject of an animated discussion between Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds, keeping the whole family in fits of laughter at Dr. Johnson’s polysyllabic references to the industry of the spider, and then bringing tears to their eyes at his picture of the heartlessness of allowing a grey-haired spider to be cast upon the world in its declining years. Of course the children appreciated the ludicrous mistakes made by Sir Joshua, whose infirmity of deafness caused him to assume that Johnson had said exactly the opposite to what he was saying. And then he pretended that he heard a knock at the door. He hastened to admit a gentleman with a very lugubrious face, and before he had opened his mouth there was a cry of “Mr. Cumberland! Mr. Cumberland!” In the truest style of Richard Cumberland, he hastened to decry the whole spider family. Their spinning was grossly overrated, he declared; for his part, he had known many spiders in his time, but he had never known one that was a spinster.

This sort of fooling was what Garrick enjoyed better than anything else, and he brought all his incomparable powers to bear upon it. He played this form of comedy with the same supreme perfection that he displayed in the tragedy of Hamlet. Even Tom Linley, who was inclined to be coldly critical of such buffoonery, soon became aware of the difference between the fooling of a man of genius and that of an ordinary person. He laughed as heartily as his younger brothers and sisters during the five minutes that Garrick was in the room.

“By the way,” cried the actor when he was taking his leave (Mr. Linley had just entered the room), “our friend Tom Sheridan goes to Ireland to-morrow. He has been released from his little difficulties which sent him to France. It seems that his chief creditor in Dublin actually petitioned the court to grant Tom exemption from any liability to pay what he owes. Is not that an ideal creditor for one to have? What persuasive letters Tom must have written to him! But for that matter, he could persuade the most obdurate man out of his most cherished belief.”

“Could he persuade you that his Hamlet is superior to yours, Mr. Garrick?” said Linley with a twinkle.

“Well, sir, he might succeed in persuading me of that, but that would be of little value to him, for he could persuade no one else in the world of it. Just now he was trying to persuade me that his elder son, Charles, is a man of parts, and that his second son, Dick, is a nincompoop.”

He gave a casual glance round the Linley circle; his eyes did not rest for a longer space of time upon Elizabeth than upon any of the others, but he did not fail to notice that a delicate pink had come to her cheeks, and that for the second that elapsed before her eyes fell there was an unusual sparkle in them. He did not need to look at the girl again. He had learned enough to make him certain that she was interested in at least one of the Sheridan family. But he was left wondering which of them it was that interested her. He had sufficient experience of the world, as well as of the Green Room, which he believed to be a world in itself, to be well aware of the fact that a beautiful girl may be as greatly interested in a nincompoop as in his astuter brother; and this might mean that Miss Linley was interested in Charles Sheridan rather than in Dick.

“And did he succeed in persuading you?” asked Linley.

“Faith, sir, he had no trouble persuading me to believe that if it is a wise son who knows his own father, ’tis a wiser father than Tom Sheridan that knows his own sons,” said Garrick, giving another glance round the circle. This time he saw Miss Linley’s long lashes flash from her cheek; but her eyes were not dancing, they were full of mournfulness.

Garrick found that he would have to give time to the consideration of what this expression of mournfulness meant.

“Tom was, as usual, combining the arts of devotion and elocution in his household,” continued the actor. “He holds that devotion is the handmaid to elocution. He has morning prayer in his house, not only because he is a good Churchman, but because he is an excellent teacher of elocution. He makes his children learn Christian principles and correct pronunciation at the same time.”

“That is the system of the copybooks,” said Linley. “By giving headlines of notable virtue, they inculcate good principles as well as good penmanship.”

“I call it killing two birds with the one stone,” said Polly.

“Mr. Sheridan is a copybook-heading sort of man in himself,” cried Garrick. “He is an admirable sentiment engraved in copper-plate. He thinks that Heaven will pay more attention to a petition that is pronounced according to the rules of Sheridan’s dictionary than to one which is founded on Johnson. This is how he says grace:—‘For these and all Thy mercies——’ ‘Observe, children, I say “mercies,” not “murcies.” There is not nearly enough attention given in England to discriminating between the vowel sounds—— Observe I say “vowel sounds,” not “vowil sounds.” I have now and again heard Mr. Garrick say “vowil” instead of “vowel,” which would almost lead me to believe that he has more Irish blood in his veins than his shocking parsimony would suggest. But for that matter, Mr. Garrick is constantly making errors in his elocution—— Pray note that I say “errors,” not “errurs”—and the only wonder is that any educated audience can follow the fellow. You perceive that I say “follow the fellow,” not “folly the feller,”—to be sure, it is folly to follow the fellow, but that is a matter of taste, not truth. You mark me, Richard?’ ‘Faith, sir,’ says Richard, ‘I am thinking more of swallowing than of following at the present moment; but if you begin upon the rashers, I promise you that I shall follow and say in the purest English, “For these and all Thy mercies, make us to be truly thankful.“’ Thereat brother Charles shakes his head, and says, ‘You were remarking, sir, that the English are most careless over their quantities.’ ‘That is because they have not had the privilege of being born Irishmen,’ says Dick; ‘but we have, and for this and all Thy mercies, make us to be truly thankful. Let me help you to one of these excellent rashers, father.’ Then the girls grin, looking down at their plates. Brother Charles shakes his head over Dick’s levity, and the father puts on his best ‘Cato’ face, and remains dignified and, like the breakfast, cold. But by the Lord Harry, I am worse than Tom Sheridan; I am keeping you from your breakfast of sweet sounds. There is Master Tom tuning his violin in a suggestive way. Is it true what people say, Miss Polly, that the Linley family break their fast on buttered fugues, dine off a sirloin of sonatas, and sup off jugged symphonies, drinking mugs of oratorio, and every mug with a Handel? Farewell, dear friends—farewell! ‘Oh, now for ever, farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content.’”

In a second he had become Othello, and the laughter was frozen on the face of every one in the circle. This magician carried them at will from world to world. They were powerless before him. He left them gasping, looking at one another as if they had just awakened from a dream.

“A genius!” murmured Mr. Linley, when Garrick had gone, and a long silence followed in the room. “’Tis a doubtful privilege to be visited by a genius. It unfits one for one’s daily work.”

“Nay, sir,” cried Tom, “I would fain believe that the visits of a genius are like those of an angel—that he brings us food, in the strength of which we can face the terrors of a wilderness as the prophet did—the wilderness of the commonplace.”

“True—true,” said his father. “Still, I think that ’tis just as well for us all that the visits of a genius have the qualities which have been ascribed to those of an angel. Now we shall begin our studies. After all, Mr. Garrick only delayed us for twenty minutes. It might have been much worse.”

“Yes, it might have been Mr. Foote,” said Polly.

“That would indeed have been much worse,” said her father. “Mr. Foote makes us laugh, and leaves us laughing; Mr. Garrick makes us laugh, and leaves us thinking.”

And then the lessons began.

Even the delight of hearing her brother play one of Bach’s most ethereal compositions for the violin and harpsichord failed to make Betsy submissive to the ordeal from which she shrank. Her father seemed especially exacting on this morning, but he was not so in reality; it was only that Betsy felt more weary of the constant references to the technicalities which her fine feeling now and again discarded, greatly to the advantage of the composition which she was set to interpret, but which her father, with all the rigid scruple of the made musician, insisted on her observing.

And Tom, whom she had trusted to take her part, believing that he would understand her feelings by considering his own—Tom stood by, coldly acquiescing in her father’s judgment in all questions of technique; nay, he showed himself, by his criticism of her phrasing at one part of an air from Orféo, more a slave to precision than was her father. She had had some hope of Tom when he had begun to improvise that mysterious accompaniment to her singing on the previous evening. Surely any one who could so give himself up to his imagination as he had done would understand how she should become impatient of the reins of technique! Surely he would understand that there are moments when one can afford to sing out of the fulness of one’s heart rather than in strict accordance with the suggestions of the composer!

Alas! Tom had failed her in her hour of need. He seemed to think that the privilege of improvising should be enjoyed only by a player on the violin, and that it would be the grossest presumption on the part of a vocalist so to indulge her imagination. And thus, bringing weariness and disappointment to the girl, the day wore away.