im
his evening lesson: and then with a sudden cry she laughed out: "Oh! but
I haven't played you your tune, and you must have your tune!"

Forthwith she stript the harp half bare, and throwing a propitiatory
bright glance at her audience on the other side of her, she commenced
thrumming a kind of Giles Scroggins, native British, beer-begotten
air, while Jim smeared his mouth and grinned, as one who sees his love
dragged into public view, and is not the man to be ashamed of her,
though he hopes you will hardly put him to the trial.

"This is his favourite tune, that he taught me," she emphasized to the
company. "I play to him every night, for a finish; and then he takes
care not to knock my poor harp to pieces and tumble about."

The gentlemen were amused by the Giles Scroggins air, which she had
delivered with a sufficient sense of its lumping fun and leg-for-leg
jollity, and they laughed and applauded; but the ladies were silent
after the performance, until the moment came to thank her for the
entertainment she had afforded them: and then they broke into gentle
smiles, and trusted they might have the pleasure of hearing her another
night.

"Oh! just as often and as much as you like," she said, and first held
her hand to Arabella, next to Cornelia, and then to Adela. She seemed to
be hesitating before the gentlemen, and when Wilfrid raised his hat, she
was put to some confusion, and bowed rather awkwardly, and retired.

"Good night, miss!" called Mr. Pericles.

"Good night, sir!" she answered from a little distance, and they
could see that she was there emboldened to drop a proper curtsey in
accompaniment.

Then the ladies stood together and talked of her, not with absolute
enthusiasm. For, "Was it not divine?" said Adela; and Cornelia asked
her if she meant the last piece; and, "Oh, gracious! not that!" Adela
exclaimed. And then it was discovered how their common observation had
fastened on the boot-lace; and this vagrant article became the key to
certain speculations on her condition and character.

"I wish I'd had a dozen bouquets, that's all!" cried Wilfrid, "she
deserved them."

"Has she sentiment for what she sings? or is it only faculty?" Cornelia
put it to Mr. Sumner.

That gentleman faintly defended the stranger for the intrusion of the
bumpkin tune. "She did it so well!" he said.

"I complain that she did it too well," uttered Cornelia, whose use of
emphasis customarily implied that the argument