fail to impress him. Georgiana, the eldest,
with her black ringlets, her flashing eyes, her noble aquiline profile,
her swan-like neck, and sloping shoulders, was orientally dazzling; and
the twins, with their delicately turned-up noses, their blue eyes, and
chestnut hair, were an identical pair of ravishingly English charmers.

"Their conversation at this first meeting proved, however, to be so
forbidding that, but for the invincible attraction exercised by their
beauty, George would never have had the courage to follow up the
acquaintance. The twins, looking up their noses at him with an air of
languid superiority, asked him what he thought of the latest French
poetry and whether he liked the 'Indiana' of George Sand. But what
was almost worse was the question with which Georgiana opened her
conversation with him. 'In music,' she asked, leaning forward and
fixing him with her large dark eyes, 'are you a classicist or a
transcendentalist?' George did not lose his presence of mind. He had
enough appreciation of music to know that he hated anything classical,
and so, with a promptitude which did him credit, he replied, 'I am a
transcendentalist.' Georgiana smiled bewitchingly. 'I am glad,' she
said; 'so am I. You went to hear Paganini last week, of course. "The
prayer of Moses"--ah!' She closed her eyes. 'Do you know anything more
transcendental than that?' 'No,' said George, 'I don't.' He hesitated,
was about to go on speaking, and then decided that after all it would be
wiser not to say--what was in fact true--that he had enjoyed above all
Paganini's Farmyard Imitations. The man had made his fiddle bray like
an ass, cluck like a hen, grunt, squeal, bark, neigh, quack, bellow, and
growl; that last item, in George's estimation, had almost compensated
for the tediousness of the rest of the concert. He smiled with pleasure
at the thought of it. Yes, decidedly, he was no classicist in music; he
was a thoroughgoing transcendentalist.

"George followed up this first introduction by paying a call on the
young ladies and their mother, who occupied, during the season, a small
but elegant house in the neighbourhood of Berkeley Square. Lady Lapith
made a few discreet inquiries, and having found that George's financial
position, character, and family were all passably good, she asked him to
dine. She hoped and expected that her daughters would all marry into
the peerage; but, being a prudent woman, she knew it was advisable to
pre