s of
Bond Street and Regent Street combined (which Conduit Street so
broadly and genially connected with each other) could compensate her
for the lost gentility, the aristocratic dulness and quiet and
repose, "almost equal to that of a West End square."

Then she believed that business was not going on well, since Mr.
Gibson talked of giving up his Cheapside establishment; he said it
was too much for him to look after. But he had lost much of his fun,
and seemed harassed and thin, and muttered in his sleep; and the
poor woman was full of forebodings, some of which were to be
justified by the events that followed.

About this time Leah, who had forebodings too, took it into her head
to attend a class for book-keeping, and in a short time thoroughly
mastered the science in all its details. I'm afraid she was better
at this kind of work than at either drawing or music, both of which
she had been so perseveringly taught. She could read off any music
at sight quite glibly and easily, it is true--the result of hard
plodding--but could never play to give real pleasure, and she gave
it up. And with singing it was the same; her voice was excellent and
had been well trained, but when she heard the untaught Barty she
felt she was no singer, and never would be, and left off trying. Yet
nobody got more pleasure out of the singing of others--especially
Barty's and that of young Mr. Santley, who was her pet and darling,
and whom she far preferred to that sweetest and suavest of tenors,
Giuglini, about whom we all went mad. I agreed with her. Giuglini's
voice was like green chartreuse in a liqueur-glass; Santley's like a
bumper of the very best burgundy that ever was! Oh that high G!
Romane-Conti, again; and in a quart-pot! En veux-tu? en voila!

And as for her drawing, it was as that of all intelligent young
ladies who have been well taught, but have no original talent
whatever; nor did she derive any special pleasure from the
masterpieces in the National Gallery; the Royal Academy was far more
to her taste; and to mine, I frankly admit; and, I fear, to Barty's
taste also, in those days. Enough of the Guardsman still remained in
him to quite unfit his brain and ear and eye for what was best in
literature and art. He was mildly fond of the "Bacchus and Ariadne,"
and Rembrandt's portrait of himself, and a few others; as he was of
the works of Shakespeare and Milton. But Mantegna and Botticelli and
Signorelli made him sad, and almost