CHAPTER III.

GREEN AGE AND HOARY YOUTH.

AFTER supper Mrs. Helston sat down at the little piano, and played to Amy's singing. The former, though far from being an artist, was a creditable performer, and from long practice suited with her sister's voice-which was a very sweet one-better, perhaps, than a better player would have done. Their materials were very simple, chiefly old ballads set to well-known airs; but the effect produced was surprisingly good. With the present audience, at all events, it was much more successful than any of those elaborate performances would have been that appeal so importunately to the ear in fashionable drawing-rooms, the difficulty of executing which, even when surmounted, irresistibly reminds one of Dr. Johnson's famous re

joinder. Every word was distinctly heard, and, still more wonderful, was worth hearing; for Uncle Stephen exceedingly objected to the usual sacrifice of sense to sound. He used to tell a story, which we have no reason to disbelieve, of having heard a young lady sing Thou who so gently walkest over me,' and who stuck to the assertion that so the line ran. She had sung it so for years, and no one had objected to it before; and she did not at all see that it must needs be addressed to a flea or a fly, as he had pointed. out. It was with the utmost difficulty that she was persuaded to accept watchest' as the right reading.

When the fine old ballads were finished, I am sorry to say that Mr. Frank Barlow put in a request for the African melody of 'Some folks do,' which was executed with great spirit, and brought the evening to a most hilarious conclusion; for Mr. Barlow generally took his leave about half-past ten at latest. He was a practical man, who believed in such proverbs as Early to bed,'

&c., though perhaps he was not so solicitous. about becoming 'wise' as wealthy.' If he had been a sailor or a salesman, instead of a lawyer, he would have buckled to his calling and made himself equally at home with it, for a calling was with him but the means to an end. He had no particular bent, and his tastes were those of the public at large, and the reverse of fastidious. It spite of which, as often happens, he felt considerable contempt for those whom Nature had endowed in a less lavish manner; nor am I quite certain that his very choice of a song had not been made with a view of moral reproof. If Amy had guessed, however, that those lively lines

Some folks get grey hairs,
Some folks do, some folks do,
Brooding o'er their cares—
But that's not me nor you—

had had any the most distant reference to her brother-in-law, she would certainly not have sung them; nor, indeed, did anyone apply them to Matthew.

'Come, darling, you must get your beauty sleep,' cried he to his wife when Barlow had departed, or you will have no colour in your cheeks to-morrow. It is only Amy who gets roses thrown over the wall to her.' And you?' rejoined Sabey tenderly. 'Can you not snatch a few hours' rest before that horrid cab comes?'

'No, my sweet; I prefer a short night to a broken one, as you well know. Your uncle and I are going to have a pipe in the study, and then I have the new poem to finish.'

6

Then he'll sleep, for certain,' said Amy, reassuringly.

'Oh, but it is so sad his sitting up so; there are four long, long hours before him.' 'I'll sleep at the office to-morrow, It is very seldom that these balls come so late in the season.'

laughed Matt. 'Don't fret. It is

'Good-night, you dear old victim to Fashion,' said Amy, as she kissed her brother.

'Good-night, darling,' murmured Sabey, pityingly. Promise to take something before you go: there is some chicken left, and you will find sherry and soda-water on the table.'

6

It is a great thing to find a woman to love one, and you have found two, Matthew,' sighed old Stephen, as they went downstairs. You should think yourself very fortunate.'

'I do, uncle, I do assure you-in that respect,' answered Matthew gravely.

The study' was an underground room beneath the parlour, lined with books, and also so littered with them that it was difficult

to move across the floor.

table, too, along with the

They lay on the

sherry and soda

Sabey's forethought had provided; and were indeed the only ornaments of the apartment, unless a something in one corner covered with a white cloth, and looking like a baby's coffin, was any article of vertu. There was also a tobacco-jar on the mantelpiece, with several pipes.