ined in spectacles; at least, he was as mute as a
statue. Gwendolen was pressed to keep her seat and double the general
pleasure, and she did not wish to refuse; but before resolving to do
so, she moved a little toward Herr Klesmer, saying with a look of
smiling appeal, "It would be too cruel to a great musician. You cannot
like to hear poor amateur singing."

"No, truly; but that makes nothing," said Herr Klesmer, suddenly
speaking in an odious German fashion with staccato endings, quite
unobservable in him before, and apparently depending on a change of
mood, as Irishmen resume their strongest brogue when they are fervid or
quarrelsome. "That makes nothing. It is always acceptable to see you
sing."

Was there ever so unexpected an assertion of superiority? at least
before the late Teutonic conquest? Gwendolen colored deeply, but, with
her usual presence of mind, did not show an ungraceful resentment by
moving away immediately; and Miss Arrowpoint, who had been near enough
to overhear (and also to observe that Herr Klesmer's mode of looking at
Gwendolen was more conspicuously admiring than was quite consistent
with good taste), now with the utmost tact and kindness came close to
her and said--

"Imagine what I have to go through with this professor! He can hardly
tolerate anything we English do in music. We can only put up with his
severity, and make use of it to find out the worst that can be said of
us. It is a little comfort to know that; and one can bear it when every
one else is admiring."

"I should be very much obliged to him for telling me the worst," said
Gwendolen, recovering herself. "I dare say I have been extremely ill
taught, in addition to having no talent--only liking for music." This
was very well expressed considering that it had never entered her mind
before.

"Yes, it is true: you have not been well taught," said Herr Klesmer,
quietly. Woman was dear to him, but music was dearer. "Still, you are
not quite without gifts. You sing in tune, and you have a pretty fair
organ. But you produce your notes badly; and that music which you sing
is beneath you. It is a form of melody which expresses a puerile state
of culture--a dawdling, canting, see-saw kind of stuff--the passion and
thought of people without any breadth of horizon. There is a sort of
self-satisfied folly about every phrase of such melody; no cries of
deep, mysterious passion--no conflict--no sense of the universal. It
makes men small