ouble in the end if she told her brother
and sister-in-law of this scheme. "I do not suppose," she wrote, "that
Dr Skinner will approve very cordially of my attempt to introduce organ-
building into the _curriculum_ of Roughborough, but I will see what I can
do with him, for I have set my heart on owning an organ built by Ernest's
own hands, which he may play on as much as he likes while it remains in
my house and which I will lend him permanently as soon as he gets one of
his own, but which is to be my property for the present, inasmuch as I
mean to pay for it." This was put in to make it plain to Theobald and
Christina that they should not be out of pocket in the matter.

If Alethea had been as poor as the Misses Allaby, the reader may guess
what Ernest's papa and mamma would have said to this proposal; but then,
if she had been as poor as they, she would never have made it. They did
not like Ernest's getting more and more into his aunt's good books, still
it was perhaps better that he should do so than that she should be driven
back upon the John Pontifexes. The only thing, said Theobald, which made
him hesitate, was that the boy might be thrown with low associates later
on if he were to be encouraged in his taste for music--a taste which
Theobald had always disliked. He had observed with regret that Ernest
had ere now shown rather a hankering after low company, and he might make
acquaintance with those who would corrupt his innocence. Christina
shuddered at this, but when they had aired their scruples sufficiently
they felt (and when people begin to "feel," they are invariably going to
take what they believe to be the more worldly course) that to oppose
Alethea's proposal would be injuring their son's prospects more than was
right, so they consented, but not too graciously.

After a time, however, Christina got used to the idea, and then
considerations occurred to her which made her throw herself into it with
characteristic ardour. If Miss Pontifex had been a railway stock she
might have been said to have been buoyant in the Battersby market for
some few days; buoyant for long together she could never be, still for a
time there really was an upward movement. Christina's mind wandered to
the organ itself; she seemed to have made it with her own hands; there
would be no other in England to compare with it for combined sweetness
and power. She already heard the famous Dr Walmisley of Cambridge
mistaking it for