as ridiculous in her ant'alcoholic
exclusiveness and scorn: Mr. Pempton, a drinker of wine, would laud
extravagantly the more transparent purity of vegetarianism. Dr. Peter
Yatt jeered at globules: Dr. John Cormyn mourned over human creatures
treated as cattle by big doses. The Rev. Septimus Barmby satisfactorily
smoked: Mr. Peridon traced mortal evil to that act. Dr. Schlesien had
his German views, Colney Durance his ironic, Fenellan his fanciful and
free-lance. And here was an optimist, there a pessimist; and the rank
Radical, the rigid Conservative, were not wanting. All of them were
pointedly opposed, extraordinarily for so small an assembly: absurdly,
it might be thought: but these provoked a kind warm smile, with the
exclamation: 'They are dears!' They were the dearer for their fads and
foibles.

Music harmonized them. Music, strangely, put the spell on Colney
Durance, the sayer of bitter things, manufacturer of prickly balls, in
the form of Discord's apples of whom Fenellan remarked, that he took to
his music like an angry little boy to his barley-sugar, with a growl
and a grunt. All these diverse friends could meet and mix in Victor's
Concert-room with an easy homely recognition of one another's musical
qualities, at times enthusiastic; and their natural divergencies and
occasional clashes added a salient tastiness to the group of whom Nesta
could say: 'Mama, was there ever such a collection of dear good souls
with such contrary minds?' Her mother had the deepest of reasons for
loving them, so as not to wish to see the slightest change in their
minds, that the accustomed features making her nest of homeliness and
real peace might be retained, with the humour of their funny silly
antagonisms and the subsequent march in concord; excepting solely as
regarded the perverseness of Priscilla Graves in her open contempt
of Mr. Pempton's innocent two or three wine-glasses. The vegetarian
gentleman's politeness forbore to direct attention to the gobbets of
meat Priscilla consumed, though he could express disapproval in general
terms; but he entertained sentiments as warlike to the lady's habit of
'drinking the blood of animals.' The mockery of it was, that Priscilla
liked Mr. Pempton and admired his violoncello-playing, and he was
unreserved in eulogy of her person and her pure soprano tones. Nataly
was a poetic match-maker. Mr. Peridon was intended for Mademoiselle de
Seilles, Nesta's young French governess; a lady of a