g her friend Miss Barrow at the piano, she
took a chair in a corner and said; 'Now, Mr. O'Donnell, you will hear
the music that moves me.'

'But it's not to be singing,' said Patrick. 'And how can you sing so
gloriously what you don't care for? It puzzles me completely.'

She assured him she was no enigma: she hushed to him to hear.

He dropped his underlip, keeping on the conversation with his eyes until
he was caught by the masterly playing of a sonata by the chief of the
poets of sound.

He was caught by it, but he took the close of the introductory section,
an allegro con brio, for the end, and she had to hush at him again, and
could not resist smiling at her lullaby to the prattler. Patrick smiled
in response. Exchanges of smiles upon an early acquaintance between two
young people are peeps through the doorway of intimacy. She lost
sight of the Jesuit. Under the influence of good music, too, a not
unfavourable inclination towards the person sitting beside us and
sharing that sweetness, will soften general prejudices--if he was Irish,
he was boyishly Irish, not like his inscrutable brother; a better, or
hopefuller edition of Captain Con; one with whom something could be done
to steady him, direct him, improve him. He might be taught to appreciate
Beethoven and work for his fellows. 'Now does not that touch you more
deeply than the Italian?' said she, delicately mouthing: 'I, mio tradito
amor!'

'Touch, I don't know,' he was honest enough to reply. 'It's you that
haven't given it a fair chance I'd like to hear it again. There's a
forest on fire in it.'

'There is,' she exclaimed. 'I have often felt it, but never seen it. You
exactly describe it. How true!'

'But any music I could listen to all day and all the night,' said he.

'And be as proud of yourself the next morning?'

Patrick was rather at sea. What could she mean?

Mrs. Adister O'Donnell stepped over to them, with the object of
installing Colonel Adister in Patrick's place.

The object was possibly perceived. Mrs. Adister was allowed no time to
set the manoeuvre in motion.

'Mr. O'Donnell is a great enthusiast for music, and could listen to it
all day and all night, he tells me,' said Miss Mattock. 'Would he not
sicken of it in a week, Mrs. Adister?'

'But why should I?' cried Patrick. 'It's a gift of heaven.'

'And, like other gifts of heaven, to the idle it would turn to evil.'

'I can't believe it.'

'Work, and you will believe it.'