t; but they did not give
entertainments.

The pride of the pleasure of reversing the general idea of English
dulness among our neighbours, was perceived to have laid fast hold of
Dudley Sowerby at Dreux. He was at the window from time to time, counting
heads below. For this reason or a better, he begged Nesta to supplant the
flute duet with the soprano and contralto of the Helena section of the
Mefistofele, called the Serenade: La Luna immobile. She consulted her
mother, and they sang it. The crowds below, swollen to a block of the
street, were dead still, showing the instinctive good manners of the
people. Then mademoiselle astonished them with a Provencal or Cevennes
air, Huguenot, though she was Catholic; but it suited her mezzo-soprano
tones; and it rang massively of the martial-religious. To what heights of
spiritual grandeur might not a Huguenot France have marched! Dudley
Sowerby, heedlessly, under an emotion that could be stirred in him with
force, by the soul of religion issuing through music, addressed his
ejaculation to Lady Grace Halley. She did nor shrug or snub him, but
rejoined: 'I could go to battle with that song in the ears.' She liked
seeing him so happily transformed; and liked the effect of it on Nesta
when his face shone in talking. He was at home with the girl's eyes, as
he had never been. A song expressing in one of the combative and
devotional, went to the springs of his blood; for he was of an old
warrior race, beneath the thick crust of imposed peaceful maxims and
commercial pursuits and habitual stiff correctness. As much as wine, will
music bring out the native bent of the civilized man: endow him with
language too. He was as if unlocked; he met Nesta's eyes and ran in a
voluble interchange, that gave him flattering after-thoughts; and at the
moment sensibly a new and assured, or to some extent assured, station
beside a girl so vivid; by which the young lady would be helped to
perceive his unvoiced solider gifts.

Nataly observed them, thinking of Victor's mastering subtlety. She had
hoped (having clearly seen the sheep's eye in the shepherd) that Mr.
Barmby would be watchful to act as a block between them; and therefore
she had stipulated for his presence on the journey. She remembered
Victor's rapid look of readiness to consent:--he reckoned how naturally
Mr. Barmby would serve as a foil to any younger man. Mr. Barmby had tried
all along to perform his part: he had always been thwarted; n