at sort of a brain do you think _could_ flourish at the top of
such a spine? Not that I suppose that man to have the least fragment of
one; don't suspect such a thing! Don't you observe his weak, disjointed
way of carrying his head, and the Pisan appearance of his sentences? I
should dread an earthquake for such a man as Mr. Snowe--you'd have
nothing but remnants to remember him by, Fanny.'

'But earthquakes _are_ phenomena,' said Fanny, stoutly, 'and I'm not in
the least like one. As long as Landon never fails except spiritually, I
am contented--and even in that light _I_ never knew him to trip,' and
the child was as indignant as her indolent nature would permit.

'Trip! of course not,' echoed Henrietta, 'when he's buried like a
delicate Sphinx up to his shoulders in the sands of your good opinion,
and the mummy cloths of his own conceit; but just remove these, and
you'll see a downfall. My dear FRANCESCA, this man is your CECCO, and
he'd far better retire into a monastery than hope to win you. Why, I'd
rather marry you myself, FRANCESCA! Such charms!' and Henrietta, with
her own delicate perception and enjoyment of the beautiful, kissed my
sister's deprecatingly extended hand, and, as the dinner bell rang,
waltzed her out of the room.

'It's perfectly bewildering the interest some people take in music,' she
resumed later, building a little tent on the side of her plate with the
_debris_ of fish. 'There's Bartlett Browning, telling me the other
evening a melancholy story of some melodious fishes, off the coast
of--_Weiss nicht wo_; oysters, I suppose; conceive of it! the most
phlegmatic of creatures. I suppose some poor fisherman heard a merlady
singing in her green halls, and fancied it the death song of some of his
shells. But that's nothing to some of Bartlett Browning's musical tales.
The man's a perfect B flat himself!'

'Well,' said Nelly, Phil's little girl, who had come around to show her
new velvet basque, 'but shells _do_ sing, for I've often listened to
mamma's, and Bessy gives it to me at night to put me to sleep. _You_
know, Aunt Bertie, for you once made me learn what it said:

'Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!'

'Fish-land, my beauty,' said Henrietta, playfully; 'let us hear _your_
song, fishlet,' and she held a little gleaming shrimp by his tail, and
looked expectantly at his silent mouth. And here I remember, with a
smile of amusement and some as