remained with her.

Talking in this manner, and leisurely marching homeward, they were
startled to hear Mr. Pericles, who had wrapped himself impenetrably in
the bear, burst from his cogitation suddenly to cry out, in his harshest
foreign accent: "Yeaz!" And thereupon he threw open the folds, and laid
out a forefinger, and delivered himself: "I am made my mind! I send her
abroad to ze Academie for one, two, tree year. She shall be instructed
as was not before. Zen a noise at La Scala. No--Paris! No--London! She
shall astonish London fairst.--Yez! if I take a theatre! Yez! if I buy a
newspaper! Yez! if I pay feefty-sossand pound!"

His singular outlandish vehemence, and the sweeping grandeur of a
determination that lightly assumed the corruptibility of our Press,
sent a smile circling among the ladies and gentlemen. The youth who
had wished to throw the fair unknown a dozen bouquets, caught himself
frowning at this brilliant prospect for her, which was to give him his
opportunity.

CHAPTER III

The next morning there were many "tra-las" and "tum-te-turns" over the
family breakfast-table; a constant humming and crying, "I have it";
and after two or three bars, baffled pauses and confusion of mind. Mr.
Pericles was almost abusive at the impotent efforts of the sisters to
revive in his memory that particular delicious melody, the composition
of the fair singer herself. At last he grew so impatient as to
arrest their opening notes, and even to interrupt their unmusical
consultations, with "No: it is no use; it is no use: no, no, I say!" But
instantly he would plunge his forehead into the palm of his hand, and
rub it red, and work his eyebrows frightfully, until tender humanity
led the sisters to resume. Adela's, "I'm sure it began low down--tum!"
Cornelia's: "The key-note, I am positive, was B flat--ta!" and
Arabella's putting of these two assertions together, and promise to
combine them at the piano when breakfast was at an end, though it was
Sunday morning, were exasperating to the exquisite lover of music. Mr.
Pericles was really suffering torments. Do you know what it is to pursue
the sylph, and touch her flying skirts, think you have caught her, and
are sure of her--that she is yours, the rapturous evanescent darling!
when some well-meaning earthly wretch interposes and trips you, and off
she flies and leaves you floundering? A lovely melody nearly grasped and
lost in this fashion, tries the temper. Apollo cha