question.

Her ladyship answered quite unconsciously:

"Oh! there are some fine airs in it: I know them. If you will listen, I
will sing them."

The magistrate thought there must be some misunderstanding: still, if
her ladyship cared to sing, he would be only too delighted to listen.

"Which do you want 'Vienna Town' or 'Rose-bud?'"

"Both," said the host, "and into the bargain the latest parliamentary
air, 'Come Down from the Cross, and Fly to the Poplar-tree.' But let us
go out of the dining-room to hear the songs; the forks and plates are
rattling too much here: we'll go to my sister's room. There she will
sing to the accompaniment of a Magyar piano. Have you ever seen a Magyar
piano, my friend?"

"I don't remember having done so."

"Well, it is beautiful: you must hear it. My sister plays it
wonderfully."

The magistrate offered his arm to her ladyship, and the company entered
the next room, which was the lady's apartment.

It was an elegant, finely-decorated room, with mahogany and ebony
furniture, richly carved and gilded, with huge glass-panelled chests,
and heavy silk curtains yet there was a striking difference between this
room and those of other ladies; all these expensive draperies, as far as
their form and ordering was concerned, did not at all correspond with
the usual appanage of a boudoir.

In one corner stood a loom of mahogany, richly inlaid with ivory: it was
still covered with some half-finished work, in which flowers,
butterflies, and birds had been worked with remarkable refinement.

"You see," said the lady, "this is my work-table. I am responsible also
for that table-cloth on which we breakfasted to-day."

Indeed she had received an unusual education.

Beside the loom was a spinning wheel.

"And this is my library," said the lady, pointing to the cupboards
against the wall.

Through the glass panels was to be seen a host of every kind of culinary
bottles. On the bottom shelf the great folios; every kind of vinegar
that grows in hot-houses; the second row was full of preserved
cucumbers; and then on the top shelf different sorts of confitures in
brilliant perfection; last of all, a row of fruit extracts was visible,
in colors as numerous as the bottles that contained them.

"A magnificent library!" said the lawyer. But the magistrate could not
yet clearly make out what kind of lady it might be, who called such
things a library.

The heavy velvet curtains, which made a kind o