said Barty, one night.

That was not to be. Another was to illustrate _Esmond_, a poor devil
who, oddly enough, was then living in the next street and suffering
from a like disorder.[1]

[Footnote 1:
("Un malheureux, vetu de noir,
Qui me ressemblait comme un frere ..."--Ed.)]

As a return, Barty would sing to her all he knew, in five
languages--three of which neither of them quite understood--accompanying
himself on the piano or guitar. Sometimes she would play for him
accompaniments that were beyond his reach, for she was a decently taught
musician who could read fairly well at sight; whereas Barty didn't know
a single note, and picked up everything by ear. She practised these
accompaniments every afternoon, as assiduously as any school-girl.

Then they would sit up very late, as they always had so much to talk
about--what had just been read or played or sung, and many other
things: the present, the past, and the future. All their old
affection for each other had come back, trebled and quadrupled by
pity on one side, gratitude on the other--and a little remorse on
both. And there were long arrears to make up, and life was short and
uncertain.

Sometimes l'Abbe Lefebvre, one of the professors at the seminaire
and an old friend of Lady Caroline's, would come to drink tea, and
talk politics, which ran high in Mechelen. He was a most
accomplished and delightful Frenchman, who wrote poetry and adored
Balzac--and even owned to a fondness for good old Paul de Kock, of
whom it is said that when the news of his death reached Pius the
Ninth, his Holiness dropped a tear and exclaimed:

"Mio caro Paolo di Kocco!"

Now and then the Abbe would bring with him a distinguished young priest,
a Dominican--also a professor; Father Louis, of the princely house of
Aremberg, who died a Cardinal three years ago.

Father Louis had an admirable and highly cultivated musical gift,
and played to them Beethoven and Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and
Schumann--and this music, as long as it lasted (and for some time
after), was to Barty as great a source of consolation as of
unspeakable delight; and therefore to his aunt also. Though I'm
afraid she preferred any little French song of Barty's to all the
Schumanns in the world.

First of all, the priest would play the "Moonlight Sonata," let us
say; and Barty would lean back and listen with his eyes shut, and
almost believe that Beethoven was talking to him like a father, and
pointi