me, by a request for a
cup of tea. I gave him the cup of tea, and tried a second time to get
away. He stopped me again--this time by going back to the piano, and
suddenly appealing to me on a musical question in which he declared
that the honour of his country was concerned.

I vainly pleaded my own total ignorance of music, and total want of
taste in that direction. He only appealed to me again with a vehemence
which set all further protest on my part at defiance. "The English and
the Germans (he indignantly declared) were always reviling the Italians
for their inability to cultivate the higher kinds of music. We were
perpetually talking of our Oratorios, and they were perpetually talking
of their Symphonies. Did we forget and did they forget his immortal
friend and countryman, Rossini? What was Moses in Egypt but a sublime
oratorio, which was acted on the stage instead of being coldly sung in
a concert-room? What was the overture to Guillaume Tell but a symphony
under another name? Had I heard Moses in Egypt? Would I listen to this,
and this, and this, and say if anything more sublimely sacred and grand
had ever been composed by mortal man?"--And without waiting for a word
of assent or dissent on my part, looking me hard in the face all the
time, he began thundering on the piano, and singing to it with loud and
lofty enthusiasm--only interrupting himself, at intervals, to announce
to me fiercely the titles of the different pieces of music: "Chorus of
Egyptians in the Plague of Darkness, Miss Halcombe!"--"Recitativo of
Moses with the tables of the Law."--"Prayer of Israelites, at the
passage of the Red Sea. Aha! Aha! Is that sacred? is that sublime?"
The piano trembled under his powerful hands, and the teacups on the
table rattled, as his big bass voice thundered out the notes, and his
heavy foot beat time on the floor.

There was something horrible--something fierce and devilish--in the
outburst of his delight at his own singing and playing, and in the
triumph with which he watched its effect upon me as I shrank nearer and
nearer to the door. I was released at last, not by my own efforts, but
by Sir Percival's interposition. He opened the dining-room door, and
called out angrily to know what "that infernal noise" meant. The Count
instantly got up from the piano. "Ah! if Percival is coming," he said,
"harmony and melody are both at an end. The Muse of Music, Miss
Halcombe, deserts us in dismay, and I, the fa