o. The
doctor rose as if to receive the abbe, but really to put an end to the
game. After many compliments to their uncle on the wonderful proficiency
of his goddaughter, the heirs made their bow and retired.

"Good-night, my friends," cried the doctor as the iron gate clanged.

"Ah! that's where the money goes," said Madame Cremiere to Madame
Massin, as they walked on.

"God forbid that I should spend money to teach my little Aline to make
such a din as that!" cried Madame Massin.

"She said it was Beethoven, who is thought to be fine musician," said
the collector; "he has quite a reputation."

"Not in Nemours, I'm sure of that," said Madame Cremiere.

"I believe uncle made her play it expressly to drive us away," said
Massin; "for I saw him give that little minx a wink as she opened the
music-book."

"If that's the sort of charivari they like," said the post master, "they
are quite right to keep it to themselves."

"Monsieur Bongrand must be fond of whist to stand such a dreadful
racket," said Madame Cremiere.

"I shall never be able to play before persons who don't understand
music," Ursula was saying as she sat down beside the whist-table.

"In natures richly organized," said the abbe, "sentiments can be
developed only in a congenial atmosphere. Just as a priest is unable to
give the blessing in presence of an evil spirit, or as a chestnut-tree
dies in a clay soil, so a musician's genius has a mental eclipse when he
is surrounded by ignorant persons. In all the arts we must receive from
the souls who make the environment of our souls as much intensity as we
convey to them. This axiom, which rules the human mind, has been made
into proverbs: 'Howl with the wolves'; 'Like meets like.' But the
suffering you felt, Ursula, affects delicate and tender natures only."

"And so, friends," said the doctor, "a thing which would merely give
pain to most women might kill my Ursula. Ah! when I am no longer here,
I charge you to see that the hedge of which Catullus spoke,--'Ut flos,'
etc.,--a protecting hedge is raised between this cherished flower and
the world."

"And yet those ladies flattered you, Ursula," said Monsieur Bongrand,
smiling.

"Flattered her grossly," remarked the Nemours doctor.

"I have always noticed how vulgar forced flattery is," said old Minoret.
"Why is that?"

"A true thought has its own delicacy," said the abbe.

"Did you dine with Madame de Portenduere?" asked Ursula, with a look of