"No. I do not believe she has made a single acquaintance in the neighbourhood. Nobody ever dines at Lifford Grange, I hear, except the agent or the doctor, and that very seldom." "Then she has no admirers, I suppose." "O dear no, I should think not, unless "Unless Mr. Mark Apley was one. He is often riding about here, and going backwards and forwards on the road between the Grange and Stonehouseleigh, that is, when he is at home, which is only at one time of the year. When we meet him he looks at her as if he thought her very pretty, but he has never been introduced to her." "And how does she look on those occasions?" "Half proudly and half shyly, as if not sorry to be admired, and yet impatient at being watched." "Here are her flowers," Maurice said, as they entered the little sitting-room of the cottage, "shall I put them into this vase?" and without waiting for an answer, he arranged them in such a graceful way that Mary stopped to admire it. "Here is your pianoforte arrived at last," she said. "Now I shall hear some of the things that fine ladies and great musicians have admired.” "The fine ladies more than the great musicians, I am afraid. I was the fashion amongst them, and they made much of me and of my songs, but even in my art which I love with passion - I am too unstable to excel." He ran his hand over the keys, and hummed a tune which had something of the wildness of a Neapolitan air, with the tenderness of a German melody. "How pretty that is!" Mary exclaimed. "It is my 'Lady-Bird,"" he said, "the song I wrote to you about, which I composed last year at Naples. They used to encore it every night." "No wonder, for it is gay and yet there is something that touches one in it, something of sadness, which I suppose must be the perfection of music.” "Mary," he said in a moment, as they still sat together at the pianoforte, "I have thought of a plan which, if I can carry it into effect, will enable me to remain here several months without being a burthen on dear mother, and which may also be of use to me when I settle in London. I think I might give lessons in the neighbourhood. Don't you think it would answer? I did so at Florence one year." Mary smiled her assent, and Mrs. Redmond was consulted. She produced a bit of paper, and had soon written in pencil the names of several young ladies and gentlemen whom she sanguinely supposed would be sure to take lessons. The fact was that there was no musicmaster in that part of the country, and the deficiency had often been regretted by Miss Apley, who was on all occasions Mrs. Redmond's oracle. "Don't you think, mother, that you might call on Miss Apley to-morrow, and tell her that Maurice means to give lessons? She wished particularly to see you, I know, about the work at the school, and you know you don't dislike paying her a visit.” "Yes, Mary darling, but I am a little foolish about asking a favour." Maurice coloured, and Mary with her quick perception keenly felt that he was annoyed at the expression her mother had used, and instantly exclaimed, "But, dearest mother, do you know that I can hardly consider it as a favour. Maurice's talent is not a common one, and the advantage of taking lessons from him, in this out-of-the-way place, is a benefit received more than a favour conferred." "But perhaps she does not know that he has so much talent, dear, and if I say so she will think it is all my partiality." "O for Heaven's sake, mother," Maurice impatiently exclaimed, "say nothing at all about me. I will speak myself to Father Lifford. But whatever you do, don't puff me; I can't endure that." He played a noisy bravura which put a stop to further conversation; and thoughts of Italy, of the women who had flattered him, of the friends who had applauded him, of the way in which genius was con sidered there as superior to any other distinctions, and the footing of intimacy on which he had been with persons of the highest rank rose to his mind, and made him silent and abstracted during the rest of the evening. He compared these recollections with the aspect of the little room in which they were sitting, and for the first time disadvantageously; for, whether from the love of change and contrast which have great charms for persons of his disposition, or from affection for Mary, the very soberness and thoroughly English character of his childhood's home had been agreeable to him. But now he thought again of the palaces, the villas, the ilex avenues, the orange - gardens of Italy; and, as he looked at Mary quietly working at the table by the light of a single tallow candle, she did not seem to him less pleasing than before, but he said to himself, "Yes, I shall transplant you, my English daisy, to that bright land. Its fervid sunshine. will animate that somewhat too calm expression. Its influences will call forth all the feeling and the intelligence which this passionless existence would end by stifling. When I produce my first opera at the Scala or the Fenice, how that pale face will flush with excitement, how that breastwhich is now breathing so calmly will throb with emotion, when she will have to witness the failure or hail the success of what costs me almost more than my life's blood! - and those eyes, that always seem to turn more readily to Heaven than to earth, will they not flash with triumph and sparkle with delight, if the enthusiastic cries and the wild applause of an Italian audience call on the successful maestro to come and receive the meed of praise which they so well know how to bestow? O, my quiet gentle Mary, you must drink with me of that bewildering cup even though you should have to share my sufferings too." Ten o'clock struck, and Mrs. Redmond and Mary folded up their work and prepared to go to bed. As Maurice followed them into the passage, he called Mary to the garden door, and putting his hand on her arm, he said in a whisper, "Which had you rather be, intensely happy at times, and very miserable at others, or never know the extremes of human bliss and woe?" She looked surprised and almost pained. at the question, but after an instant's hesitation answered, timidly raising her eyes to his, "I suppose that I have already been too happy not to have to suffer in proportion; but come what may a higher joy or a deeper grief, I care not if the last reach me alone, and the first is shared with you." "Angel of goodness!" he fervently exclaimed, "and I, on the contrary, was wishing just now to force thee to partake the torments of my feverish existence. Keep thy divine peace of heart, my Mary, and Heaven forbid that in my wayward folly I should ever seek to dis |