r tongue."

"Laura!" said Major Graham, one day, "I would as soon hear a gong
sounded at my ear for half an hour, as most of the fine pieces you
perform now. Taste and expression are quite out of date, but the chief
object of ambition is, to seem as if you had four hands instead of two,
from the torrent of notes produced at once. If ever you wish to please
my old-fashioned ears, give me melody,--something that touches the heart
and dwells in the memory,--then years afterwards, when we hear it again,
the language seems familiar to our feelings, and we listen with deep
delight to sounds recalling a thousand recollections of former days,
which are brought back by music (real music) with distinctness and
interest which nothing else can equal."

During more than two years, while Harry and Laura were rapidly advancing
in education, they received many interesting letters from Frank,
expressing the most affectionate anxiety to hear of their being well and
happy, while his paper was filled with amusing accounts of the various
wonderful countries he visited; and at the bottom of the paper, he
always very kindly remembered to send them an order on his banker, as he
called uncle David, drawn up in proper form, saying, "Please to pay
Master Harry and Miss Laura Graham the sum of five shillings on my
account. Francis Arthur Graham."

In Frank's gay, merry epistles, he kept all his little annoyances or
vexations to himself, and invariably took up the pen with such a desire
to send cheerfulness into his own beloved home, that his letters might
have been written with a sun-beam, they were so full of warmth and
vivacity. It seemed always a fair wind to Frank, for he looked upon the
best side of every thing, and never teazed his absent friends with
complaints of distresses they could not remedy, except when he
frequently mentioned his sorrow at being separated from them, adding,
that he often wished it were possible to meet them during one day in
every year, to tell all his thoughts, and to hear theirs in return, for
sometimes now, during the night watches, when all other resources
failed, he entertained himself, by imagining the circle of home all
gathered around him, and by inventing what each individual would say
upon any subjects he liked, while all his adventures acquired a double
interest, from considering that the recital would one day amuse his dear
friends when their happy meeting at last took place. Frank was not so
over-anxi