ay, mamma, do not forget your Bible injunction: 'Render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar's,' and to music, the matters that belong
to its own divine art. Until Regina came among us that melodious
siren in the front parlour had a chronic lock-jaw from want of use.
Some of the white keys stuck fast when they were touched, and the
black ones were so stiff they almost required a hammer to make them
sound. Do let her limber them at her own 'sweet will.' Who wants a
piano locked up, like that hideous old china and heavy glass that
your grandfather's fifth cousin brought over from Amsterdam?"

"At what time of day did you practise when you were a young girl?"
asked Regina, appealing to the figure now coiled up on the lounge.

"At none, thank fortune! Regard me as a genuine _rara avis_, a
fashionable young lady with no more aptitude for the 'concord of
sweet sounds,' than for the abstractions of Hegel, or Differential
Calculus. It is traditional, that while in my nurse's arms, I
performed miracles of melody such as Auld Lang Syne, with one little
finger; but such undue precocity, madly stimulated by ambitious mamma
and nurse Nell, resulted fatally in the total destruction of my
marvellous talent, which died of cerebro-musical excitement when
confronted with the gamut. Except as the language in which Strauss
appeals to my waltzing genius, I have no more use for it than for
ancient Aztec. Thank Heaven! this is a progressive age, and girls are
no longer tormented as formerly by piano fiends, who once persisted
in pounding and squeezing music into their poor struggling nauseated
souls, as relentlessly as girls' feet are still squeezed in China. My
talent is not for the musical tones of Pythagoras."

"I should be truly glad to learn in what direction it tends." said
her mother, rather severely.

Up rose the head with its tawny crown, and there was evident emphasis
in the ringing voice and in the fiery glance that darted from her
laughing hazel eyes.

"Cruel mamma! Because Euterpe did not preside when I was lucklessly
ushered into this dancing gilt bubble that we call the world, were
all good gifts denied me? The fairies ordained that I should paint,
should soar like Apelles, Angelo, and Da Vinci into the empyrean of
pure classic art, but no sooner did I dabble in pigment, and plume my
slender artistic pin-feathers, than the granite hands of Palma pride
seized the ambitious ephemeron, cut off the sprouting wings, and bade