a Father Smith. It would come, no doubt, in reality to
Battersby Church, which wanted an organ, for it must be all nonsense
about Alethea's wishing to keep it, and Ernest would not have a house of
his own for ever so many years, and they could never have it at the
Rectory. Oh, no! Battersby Church was the only proper place for it.

Of course, they would have a grand opening, and the Bishop would come
down, and perhaps young Figgins might be on a visit to them--she must ask
Ernest if young Figgins had yet left Roughborough--he might even persuade
his grandfather Lord Lonsford to be present. Lord Lonsford and the
Bishop and everyone else would then compliment her, and Dr Wesley or Dr
Walmisley, who should preside (it did not much matter which), would say
to her, "My dear Mrs Pontifex, I never yet played upon so remarkable an
instrument." Then she would give him one of her very sweetest smiles and
say she feared he was flattering her, on which he would rejoin with some
pleasant little trifle about remarkable men (the remarkable man being for
the moment Ernest) having invariably had remarkable women for their
mothers--and so on and so on. The advantage of doing one's praising for
oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right
places.

Theobald wrote Ernest a short and surly letter _a propos_ of his aunt's
intentions in this matter.

"I will not commit myself," he said, "to an opinion whether anything will
come of it; this will depend entirely upon your own exertions; you have
had singular advantages hitherto, and your kind aunt is showing every
desire to befriend you, but you must give greater proof of stability and
steadiness of character than you have given yet if this organ matter is
not to prove in the end to be only one disappointment the more.

"I must insist on two things: firstly that this new iron in the fire does
not distract your attention from your Latin and Greek"--("They aren't
mine," thought Ernest, "and never have been")--"and secondly, that you
bring no smell of glue or shavings into the house here, if you make any
part of the organ during your holidays."

Ernest was still too young to know how unpleasant a letter he was
receiving. He believed the innuendoes contained in it to be perfectly
just. He knew he was sadly deficient in perseverance. He liked some
things for a little while, and then found he did not like them any
more--and this was as bad as anything well could be