e perfectly: "In
one of these friends' houses a family quartet played what were rather
new and terrible to me--long sonatas and concerted pieces which filled
my soul with dismay. It is a dreadful confession to make, and proceeds
from want of education and instruction, but I fear any appreciation of
music I have is purely literary. I love a song and a 'tune;' the
humblest fiddler has sometimes given me the greatest pleasure, and
sometimes gone to my heart; but music, properly so called, the only
music that many of my friends would listen to, is to me a wonder and a
mystery. My mind wanders through adagios and andantes, gaping, longing
to understand. Will no one tell me what it means? I want to find the
old unhappy far off things which Wordsworth imagined in the Gaelic song
of the 'Highland Lass.' I feel out of it, uneasy, thinking all the time
what a poor creature I must be. I remember the mother of the sonata
players approaching me with beaming countenance on the occasion of one
of these performances, expecting the compliment which I faltered forth,
doing my best not to look insincere. 'And I have this every evening of
my life,' cried the triumphant mother. 'Good heavens, and you have
survived it all' was my internal response." But the worst thing is when
you do not expect a musical evening and this superior music is sprung
on you. Mrs. Webster and I were once invited to meet some very
interesting people, some of the best conversationalists in Melbourne,
and we were given high-class music instead, and scarcely could a remark
be exchanged when a warning finger was held up and silence insisted on.
I could not sing, but sometimes I attempted to hum a tune. I recollect
during my first visit to Melbourne, my little nephew Johnnie, delighted
in the rhymes and poems which I recited; but one day when I was ironing
I began to sing, and he burst out with "Don't sing, auntie; let me hear
the voice of your words." So for my own delectation I began
Wordsworth's "Leechgatherer"--

There was a roaring in the wind all night,
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright.
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the stock dove broods.
The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters,
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

"Oh, that's pretty, auntie; say it again," I said it again, and yet
again, at his request, till he could al