"Mr. Casaubon is not fond of the piano, and I am very glad he is not,"

said Dorothea, whose slight regard for domestic music and feminine fine

art must be forgiven her, considering the small tinkling and smearing

in which they chiefly consisted at that dark period. She smiled and

looked up at her betrothed with grateful eyes. If he had always been

asking her to play the "Last Rose of Summer," she would have required

much resignation. "He says there is only an old harpsichord at Lowick,

and it is covered with books."

"Ah, there you are behind Celia, my dear. Celia, now, plays very

prettily, and is always ready to play. However, since Casaubon does

not like it, you are all right. But it's a pity you should not have

little recreations of that sort, Casaubon: the bow always strung--that

kind of thing, you know--will not do."

"I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears

teased with measured noises," said Mr. Casaubon. "A tune much iterated

has the ridiculous effect of making the words in my mind perform a sort

of minuet to keep time--an effect hardly tolerable, I imagine, after

boyhood. As to the grander forms of music, worthy to accompany solemn

celebrations, and even to serve as an educating influence according to

the ancient conception, I say nothing, for with these we are not

immediately concerned."

"No; but music of that sort I should enjoy," said Dorothea. "When we

were coming home from Lausanne my uncle took us to hear the great organ

at Freiberg, and it made me sob."

"That kind of thing is not healthy, my dear," said Mr. Brooke.

"Casaubon, she will be in your hands now: you must teach my niece to

take things more quietly, eh, Dorothea?"

He ended with a smile, not wishing to hurt his niece, but really

thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so

sober a fellow as Casaubon, since she would not hear of Chettam.

"It is wonderful, though," he said to himself as he shuffled out of the

room--"it is wonderful that she should have liked him. However, the

match is good. I should have been travelling out of my brief to have

hindered it, let Mrs. Cadwallader say what she will. He is pretty

certain to be a bishop, is Casaubon. That was a very seasonable

pamphlet of his on the Catholic Question:--a deanery at least. They

owe him a deanery."

And here I must vindicate a claim to philosophical reflectiveness, by

remarking that Mr. Brooke on this occasion little thought of the

Radical speech which, at a later period, he was led to make on the

incomes of the bishops. What elegant historian would neglect a

striking opportunity for pointing out that his heroes did not foresee

the history of the world, or even their own actions?--For example, that

Henry of Navarre, when a Protestant baby, little thought of being a

Catholic monarch; or that Alfred the Great, when he measured his

laborious nights with burning candles, had no idea of future gentlemen

measuring their idle days with watches. Here is a mine of truth,

which, however vigorously it may be worked, is likely to outlast our

coal.




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