t all
English tastes and may be taken for a rough sample of the jumble of
them, where a danceless quadrille-tune succeeds a suicidal Operatic
melody and is followed by the weariful hymn, whose last drawl pert polka
kicks aside. Thus does the poor Savoyard compel a rich people to pay for
their wealth. Not without pathos in the abstract perhaps do the wretched
machines pursue their revolutions of their factory life, as incapable of
conceiving as of bestowing pleasure: a bald cry for pennies through the
barest pretence to be agreeable but Jane found it hard to be tolerant of
them out of London, and this one affecting her invalid and Mrs. Adister
must be dismissed. Wayland was growling; he had to be held by the
collar. He spied an objectionable animal. A jerky monkey was attached
to the organ; and his coat was red, his kepi was blue; his tailor had
rigged him as a military gentleman. Jane called to the farm-wife. Philip
assured her he was not annoyed. Jane observed him listening, and by
degrees she distinguished a maundering of the Italian song she had one
day sung to Patrick in his brother's presence.
'I remember your singing that the week before I went to India,' said
Philip, and her scarlet blush flooded her face.
'Can you endure the noise?' she asked him.
'Con would say it shrieks "murder." But I used to like it once.'
Mrs. Lappett came answering to the call. Her children were seen up
the garden setting to one another with squared aprons, responsive to a
livelier measure.
'Bless me, miss, we think it so cheerful!' cried Mrs. Lappett, and
glanced at her young ones harmonious and out of mischief.
'Very well,' said Jane, always considerate for children. She had
forgotten the racked Mrs. Adister.
Now the hymn of Puritanical gloom-the peacemaker with Providence
performing devotional exercises in black bile. The leaps of the children
were dashed. A sallow two or three minutes composed their motions, and
then they jumped again to the step for lively legs. The similarity to
the regimental band heading soldiers on the march from Church might have
struck Philip.
'I wonder when I shall see Patrick!' he said, quickened in spite of
himself by the sham sounds of music to desire changes and surprises.
Jane was wondering whether he could be a man still to brood tearfully
over his old love.
She echoed him. 'And I! Soon, I hope.'
The appearance of Mrs. Adister with features which were the acutest
critical summary
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