had
cause for his conduct."

Aunt Eliza's prudent words were a great solace to Aurora. And she
forgave the bassoon all the pain he had inflicted when she went to the
opera the next night and heard him in "I Puritani," a work in which the
grand virility of his nature, its vigor and force, came out with
telling effect. There was not a trace of the insolence he had
manifested in "Die Walkuere," nor of the humorous antics he had
displayed in "La Grande Duchesse"; divested of all charlatanism, he was
now a magnificent, sonorous, manly bassoon, and you may depend upon it
Aurora was more in love with him than ever.

It was about this time that, perceiving a marked change in his
daughter's appearance and demeanor, Aurora's father began to question
her mother about it all, and that good lady at last made bold to tell
the old gentleman the whole truth of the matter, which was simply that
Aurora cherished a passion for the bassoon. Now the father was an
exceedingly matter-of-fact, old-fashioned man, who possessed not the
least bit of sentiment, and when he heard that his only child had
fallen in love with a bassoon, his anger was very great. He summoned
Aurora into his presence, and regarded her with an austere countenance.

"Girl," he said, in icy tones, "is it true that you have been flirting
with a bassoon?"

"Father," replied Aurora, with dignity, "I have never flirted with
anybody, and you grievously wrong the bassoon when you intimated that
he, too, is capable of such frivolity."

"It is nevertheless true," roared the old gentleman, "that you have
conceived a passion for this bassoon, and have cherished it
clandestinely."

"It _is_ true, father, that I love the bassoon," said Aurora; "it is
true that I admire his wit, vivacity, sentiment, soul, force, power,
and manliness, but I have loved in secret. We have never met; he may
know I love him, and he may reciprocate my love, but he has never
spoken to me nor I to him, so there is nothing clandestine in the
affair."

"Oh, my child! my child!" sobbed the old man, breaking down; "how could
you love a bassoon, when so many eligible young men are suitors for
your hand?"

"Don't mention him in the same breath with those horrid creatures!"
cried Aurora, indignantly. "What scent of tobacco or odor of wines has
ever profaned the purity of his balmy breath? What does he know of
billiards, of horse-racing, of actresses, and those other features of
brutal men's lives?