"You will let me hear some music to-night, I hope."

"I will let you hear my attempts, if you like," said Rosamond. "Papa

is sure to insist on my singing. But I shall tremble before you, who

have heard the best singers in Paris. I have heard very little: I have

only once been to London. But our organist at St. Peter's is a good

musician, and I go on studying with him."

"Tell me what you saw in London."

"Very little." (A more naive girl would have said, "Oh, everything!"

But Rosamond knew better.) "A few of the ordinary sights, such as raw

country girls are always taken to."

"Do you call yourself a raw country girl?" said Lydgate, looking at her

with an involuntary emphasis of admiration, which made Rosamond blush

with pleasure. But she remained simply serious, turned her long neck a

little, and put up her hand to touch her wondrous hair-plaits--an

habitual gesture with her as pretty as any movements of a kitten's paw.

Not that Rosamond was in the least like a kitten: she was a sylph

caught young and educated at Mrs. Lemon's.

"I assure you my mind is raw," she said immediately; "I pass at

Middlemarch. I am not afraid of talking to our old neighbors. But I

am really afraid of you."

"An accomplished woman almost always knows more than we men, though her

knowledge is of a different sort. I am sure you could teach me a

thousand things--as an exquisite bird could teach a bear if there were

any common language between them. Happily, there is a common language

between women and men, and so the bears can get taught."

"Ah, there is Fred beginning to strum! I must go and hinder him from

jarring all your nerves," said Rosamond, moving to the other side of

the room, where Fred having opened the piano, at his father's desire,

that Rosamond might give them some music, was parenthetically

performing "Cherry Ripe!" with one hand. Able men who have passed

their examinations will do these things sometimes, not less than the

plucked Fred.

"Fred, pray defer your practising till to-morrow; you will make Mr.

Lydgate ill," said Rosamond. "He has an ear."

Fred laughed, and went on with his tune to the end.

Rosamond turned to Lydgate, smiling gently, and said, "You perceive,

the bears will not always be taught."

"Now then, Rosy!" said Fred, springing from the stool and twisting it

upward for her, with a hearty expectation of enjoyment. "Some good

rousing tunes first."

Rosamond played admirably. Her master at Mrs. Lemon's school (close to

a county town with a memorable history that had its relics in church

and castle) was one of those excellent musicians here and there to be

found in our provinces, worthy to compare with many a noted

Kapellmeister in a country which offers more plentiful conditions of

musical celebrity. Rosamond, with the executant's instinct, had seized

his manner of playing, and gave forth his large rendering of noble

music with the precision of an echo. It was almost startling, heard

for the first time. A hidden soul seemed to be flowing forth from

Rosamond's fingers; and so indeed it was, since souls live on in

perpetual echoes, and to all fine expression there goes somewhere an

originating activity, if it be only that of an interpreter. Lydgate

was taken possession of, and began to believe in her as something

exceptional. After all, he thought, one need not be surprised to find

the rare conjunctions of nature under circumstances apparently

unfavorable: come where they may, they always depend on conditions that

are not obvious. He sat looking at her, and did not rise to pay her

any compliments, leaving that to others, now that his admiration was

deepened.




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