duet with her daughter:
violins and clarionet; how funny; something Hungarian. And in the Second
Part, Schubert's Ave Maria--Oh! when we hear that, we dissolve. She was a
singer before he married her, they say: a lady by birth one of the first
County families. But it was a gift, and she could not be kept from it,
and was going, when they met--and it was love! the most perfect duet. For
him she abandoned the Stage. You must remember, that in their young days
the Stage was many stages beneath the esteem entertained for it now.
Domestic Concerts are got up to gratify her: a Miss Fredericks: good old
English name. Mr. Radnor calls his daughter, Freddy; so Mr. Taplow, the
architect, says. They are for modern music and ancient. Tannhauser,
Wagner, you see. Pergolese.

Flute-duet, Mercadante. Here we have him! O--Durandarte: Air Basque,
variations--his own. Again, Senor Durandarte, Mendelssohn. Encore him,
and he plays you a national piece. A dark little creature a
Life-guardsman could hold-up on his outstretched hand for the fifteen
minutes of the performance; but he fills the hall and thrills the heart,
wafts you to heaven; and does it as though he were conversing with his
Andalusian lady-love in easy whispers about their mutual passion for
Spanish chocolate all the while: so the musical critic of the Tirra-Lirra
says. Express trains every half hour from London; all the big people of
the city. Mr. Radnor commands them, like Royalty. Totally different from
that old figure of the wealthy City merchant; young, vigorous, elegant, a
man of taste, highest culture, speaks the languages of Europe, patron of
the Arts, a perfect gentleman. His mother was one of the Montgomerys, Mr.
Taplow says.

And it was General Radnor, a most distinguished officer, dying knighted.
But Mr. Victor Radnor would not take less than a Barony--and then only
with descent of title to his daughter, in her own right.

Mr. Taplow had said as much as Victor Radnor chose that he should say.

Carriages were in flow for an hour: pedestrians formed a wavy coil.
Judgeing by numbers, the entertainment was a success; would the hall
contain them? Marvels were told of the hall. Every ticket entered and was
enfolded; almost all had a seat. Chivalry stood. It is a breeched
abstraction, sacrificeing voluntarily and genially to the Fair, for a
restoring of the balance between the sexes, that the division of good
things be rather in the fair ones' favour, as they are to t