“Well,” said Miss Arundel, “so long as a person can talk agreeably, I am satisfied. I think to talk well a rare gift; quite as rare as singing; and yet you expect every one to be able to talk, and very few to be able to sing.”
“There are amusing people who do not interest,” said the monsignore, “and interesting people who do not amuse. What I like is an agreeable person.”
“My idea of an agreeable person,” said Hugo Bohun, “is a person who agrees with me.”
“Talking of singing, something is going to happen,” said Miss Arundel.
A note was heard; a celebrated professor had entered the room and was seated at the piano, which he had just touched. There was a general and unconscious hush, and the countenance of Lord St. Aldegonde wore a rueful expression. But affairs turned out better than could be anticipated. A young and pretty girl, dressed in white, with a gigantic sash of dazzling beauty, played upon the violin with a grace, and sentimental and marvellous skill, and passionate expression, worthy of St. Cecilia. She was a Hungarian lady, and this was her English debut. Everybody praised her, and every body was pleased; and Lord St. Aldegonde, instead of being bored, took a wondrous rose out of his button-hole and presented it to her.
The performance only lasted half an hour, and then the ladies began to think of their bowers. Lady St. Aldegonde, before she quit the room, was in earnest conversation with her lord.
“I have arranged all that you wished, Granville,” she said, speaking rapidly and holding a candlestick. “We are to see the castle to-morrow, and the gardens and the parks and every thing else, but you are not to be bored at all, and not to lose your shooting. The moors are sixteen miles off, but our host says, with an omnibus and a good team—and he will give you a first-rate one—you can do it in an hour and ten minutes, certainly an hour and a quarter; and you are to make your own party in the smoking-room to-night, and take a capital luncheon with you.”
“All right: I shall ask the Yankee; and I should like to take that Hungarian girl too, if she would only fiddle to us at luncheon.”