"Oh! it was you and not the music," he returned half-cajolingly, while he
beat the tom-tom on air.

"Hark here!" cried Emilia. She recited a verse. "Doesn't that sound dead?
Now hark!" She sang the verse, and looked confidently for Tracy's verdict
at the close.

"What a girl that is!" He went about the house, raving of her to
everybody, with sundry Gallic interjections; until Mrs. Chump said:
"'Deed, sir, ye don't seem to have much idea of a woman's feelin's."

Tracy produced in a night two sketches of libretti for Emilia to choose
from--the Roman Clelia being one, and Camillus the other. Tracy praised
either impartially, and was indifferent between them, he told her. Clelia
offered the better theme for passionate song, but there was a winning
political object and rebuff to be given to Radicalism in Camillus. "Think
of Rome!" he said.

Emilia gave the vote for Camillus, beginning forthwith to hum, with
visions of a long roll of swarthy cavalry, headed by a clear-eyed young
chief, sunlight perching on his helm.

"Yes; but you don't think of the situations in Clelia, and what I can do
with her," snapped Tracy. "I see a song there that would light up all
London. Unfortunately, the sentiment's dead Radical. It wouldn't so much
matter if we were certain to do Camillus as well; because one would act
as a counterpoise to the other, you know. Well, follow your own fancy.
Camillus is strictly classical. I treat opera there as Alfieri conceived
tragedy. Clelia is modern style. Cast the die for Camillus, and let's
take horse. Only, we lose the love-business--exactly where I show my
strength. Clelia in the camp of the king: dactyllic chorus-accompaniment,
while she, in heavy voluptuous anapaests, confesses her love for the
enemy of her country. Remember, this is our romantic opera, where we do
what we like with History, and make up our minds for asses telling us to
go home and read our 'student's Rome.' Then that scene where she and the
king dance the dactyls, and the anapaests go to the chorus. Sublime!
Let's go into the woods and begin. We might give the first song or two
to-night. In composition, mind, always strike out your great scene, and
work from it--don't work up to it, or you've lost fire when you reach the
point. That's my method."

They ran into the woods, skipping like schoolboy and schoolgirl. On
hearing that Camillus would not be permitted to love other than his
ungrateful country, Emilia's conception of the