she could
not be kept from it, and was going, when they met--and it was love! the
most perfect duet. For him she abandoned the Stage. You must remember,
that in their young days the Stage was many stages beneath the esteem
entertained for it now. Domestic Concerts are got up to gratify her: a
Miss Fredericks: good old English name. Mr. Radnor calls his daughter,
Freddy; so Mr. Taplow, the architect, says. They are for modern music
and ancient. Tannhauser, Wagner, you see. Pergolese.

Flute-duet, Mercadante. Here we have him! O--Durandarte: Air Basque,
variations--his own. Again, Senor Durandarte, Mendelssohn. Encore
him, and he plays you a national piece. A dark little creature a
Life-guardsman could hold-up on his outstretched hand for the fifteen
minutes of the performance; but he fills the hall and thrills the heart,
wafts you to heaven; and does it as though he were conversing with his
Andalusian lady-love in easy whispers about their mutual passion
for Spanish chocolate all the while: so the musical critic of the
Tirra-Lirra says. Express trains every half hour from London; all the
big people of the city. Mr. Radnor commands them, like Royalty. Totally
different from that old figure of the wealthy City merchant; young,
vigorous, elegant, a man of taste, highest culture, speaks the languages
of Europe, patron of the Arts, a perfect gentleman. His mother was one
of the Montgomerys, Mr. Taplow says.

And it was General Radnor, a most distinguished officer, dying knighted.
But Mr. Victor Radnor would not take less than a Barony--and then only
with descent of title to his daughter, in her own right.

Mr. Taplow had said as much as Victor Radnor chose that he should say.

Carriages were in flow for an hour: pedestrians formed a wavy coil.
Judgeing by numbers, the entertainment was a success; would the hall
contain them? Marvels were told of the hall. Every ticket entered and
was enfolded; almost all had a seat. Chivalry stood. It is a breeched
abstraction, sacrificeing voluntarily and genially to the Fair, for a
restoring of the balance between the sexes, that the division of good
things be rather in the fair ones' favour, as they are to think: with
the warning to them, that the establishment of their claim for equality
puts an end to the priceless privileges of petticoats. Women must be
mad, to provoke such a warning; and the majority of them submissively
show their good sense. They send up an incense of perfumery,