y important--highly important--extremely important! And pray, Mr.
Witness, what is the difference between a musitioner and a fiddler?"
With fortunate readiness the man answered, "As much, sir, as there is
between a pair of bag-pipes and a Recorder."

CHAPTER XXVII.

A THICKNESS IN THE THROAT.

The date is September, 1805, and the room before us is a drawing-room in
a pleasant house at Brighton. The hot sun is beating down on cliff and
terrace, beach and pier, on the downs behind the town and the sparkling
sea in front. The brightness of the blue sky is softened by white vapor
that here and there resembles a vast curtain of filmy gauze, but nowhere
has gathered into visible masses of hanging cloud. In the distance the
sea is murmuring audibly, and through the screened windows, together
with the drowsy hum of the languid waves, comes a light breeze that is
invigorating, notwithstanding its sensible warmth.

Besides ourselves there are but two people in the room: a gentlewoman
who has said farewell to youth, but not to feminine grade and delicacy;
and an old man, who is lying on a sofa near one of the open windows,
whilst his daughter plays passages of Handel's music on the piano-forte.

The old man wears the dress of an obsolete school of English gentlemen;
a large brown wig with three rows of curls, the lowest row resting on
the curve of his shoulders; a loose grey coat, notable for the size of
its cuffs and the bigness of its heavy buttons; ruffles at his wrists,
and frills of fine lace below his roomy cravat. These are the most
conspicuous articles of his costume, but not the most striking points of
his aspect. Over his huge, pallid, cadaverous, furrowed face there is an
air singularly expressive of exhaustion and power, of debility and
latent strength--an air that says to sensitive beholders, "This
prostrate veteran was once a giant amongst giants; his fires are dying
out; but the old magnificent courage and ability will never altogether
leave him until the beatings of his heart shall have quite ceased: touch
him with foolishness or disrespect, and his rage will be terrible."
Standing here we can see his prodigious bushy eyebrows, that are as
white as driven snow, and under them we can see the large black eyes,
beneath the angry fierceness of which hundreds of proud British peers,
assembled in their council-chamber, have trembled like so many whipped
schoolboys. There is no lustre in them now, and their ha