e kept in exquisite order by the wife, who was a very
pretty, sad-looking woman, many years younger than her husband. By her
care the antique furniture, which must have counted its century at
least, was preserved brightly polished; the floors were so clean, that
the lack of carpeting was scarcely perceptible; and the luxuriant
jessamine she had trained round the windows was a charming substitute
for curtains. There was one peculiarity about the dwelling, of a
striking kind when its apparent poverty and the character of its owner
were considered: it contained a music-room! in which was a tolerably
large church-organ, _made and used_ by the miser himself. To the
debasing and usually absorbing passion which governed him, he united a
wonderful taste and genius for music, to gratify which he had
constructed himself the instrument we have named, on which we have heard
him perform in a style of touching, and at times sublime, expression,
the compositions of Purcell, Pergolesi, Handel, &c. We have always
thought this love of harmony in a miser a more singular and inconsistent
characteristic than the avarice of Perugino or Rembrandt, since in their
case the art they practiced fed their reigning passion for gold;
nevertheless, so it was--old Mr. Monckton would go without a meal, see
his wife and family want common necessaries, with plenty of money at his
command, and yet solace himself by performances on the organ, which
frequently went far into the night, startling the passing stranger by
bursts of solemn midnight melody; for he never played till the faded
daylight rendered it impossible for him to work at the various little
jobs by which he added to his hoards.

He had two sons: the pretty child we first knew, and an elder one--a
slim, delicate youth, who was by nature an artist. His father's
parsimony rendered it, however, a difficult matter for him to procure
materials for the exercise of his art, which was wholly self-taught; and
it was wonderful to witness the effect he could produce from a bit of
common lamp-black, or an ordinary drawing-pencil. His genius at last
found aid in the loving heart of his mother, who secretly and at
night--often while her strange husband filled the house with solemn
music--worked at her needle to procure the means of purchasing paints,
canvas, brushes, &c., for her boy; toiling secretly, for if she had
permitted the father to know that she possessed even a few shillings, he
would have extorted