happy in this employment, though one in which she could not share. Nevertheless her yawning fits came on again, as, sitting down upon the sofa by her mother, she took the Cuba upon her lap, stroked down his white silken hair, and kept asking over and over again whether it ever would clear up. To which Mrs. Darby over and over again answered, "That she really did not know." CHAPTER V. He joys in groves, and makes himself full blythe MISS DARBY was really very tolerant to the noise they were making with this new pianoforte, for to her it continued to be, what from the first opening of the fantasia by Herz it had begun to be, mere unintelligible noise. The spirit of sound did not again visit her as it had done while Angela was giving forth her scraps and simple airs, because Mr. O'Hara was far too good a musician to please an untaught ear. This fine spirit of sound (which word I use because I can think of no better) comes not with ostentation. Where there is much preparationwhere there is much display-where there is any fuss, this diviner essence escapes. At the Operahouse it is rarely present-at the concert-room or the fashionable gardens, scarcely ever. Those who seek such influences will find them lingering amid the Gothic pinnacles and vaulted roofs of the cathedral, or hanging upon the dying notes of a retreating band, when soldiers-when men, real breathing men—are marching away to suffer and to die; or amidst the lovely glens of an oppressed or suffering country, faltering out a farewell to Lochaber, or mourning over the ruined Chevalier. There was sadly too much bustle about Mr. O'Hara and his music; too much talk of this master and that; too much of difficult phrases and masterly passages, and so on. Augusta walked about and amused herself, as well as she could, with watching him, and thinking how unlike he was to Vavasour, and how much pleasanter Mr. O'Hara was before this musical madness laid hold of him, and wishing to goodness it would be fair, and they might have something to do. At last the clouds began to break. Slowly and by degrees the heavens gathered up their curtains; the blue sky appeared; the white fleeces rolled gently towards the horizon; the sun broke forth in all his glory; and the pianoforte was thought of no more. Angela, much as she had enjoyed this possession of the instrument, had, like Augusta, been rather disappointed in the pleasure she had expected from it. She too had suffered from Mr. O'Hara's pas sion for what he called good music, and had been almost entirely occupied in unravelling the different compositions of others, rather than in exercising her own powers of composition. She had found little opportunity for enjoying that sort of communion of the soul with her music, if I may use the somewhat affected expression, which was to her so delightful. Still less had she ventured to allow herself in that which would have been so great an indulgence repeating in solitude those few sacred passages which were associated with the last evening with Mr. Carteret. Besides, she was not so absorbed with the pleasure as not to be growing anxious about her little charges, and extremely impatient to get them away from town; so she had shared, to its full extent, in Augusta's impatience for a change of weather. She began to think it never would have done raining, and that they never should get to the cottage and begin to prepare a shelter for those poor little motherless babes. And though in the midst of a splendid composition, and very much to Mr. O'Hara's vexation, she sprang up from her pianoforte, and declared herself ready to set out as soon as ever Miss Darby, who was standing at the window watching the sky, announced that the weather had cleared, and that they might go. Garden bonnets, shawls, and clogs were soon put on, and the young ladies set out, leaving Mr. O'Hara still busy hammering at the bass of a splendid concerto, and not at all sorry to escape, and have the pleasure of first exploring the cottage by themselves. It was situated in a pretty little nook, this same lodge, where Augusta proposed to establish the children and their old nurse. They crossed the park, and came to the only corner in the whole domain that could make the slightest pretension to the character, either of the picturesque or of the beautiful. In this place the chalk had cropped out, as it is called, and had once probably been quarried, for the banks were broken into fantastic and precipitous masses, and were covered over with those knots of shrubby, many-twisted bushes-those bunches of high grass and flowering weeds, which make old quarries of this description so pleasing. A little gurgling stream found its way at the foot of this series of small precipices, with a few scanty alders and willows hanging over it. One of the park gates was here situated; the road approached winding by the side of this little rocky recess, at the opening of which lay the lodge. It was a thatched and perfect cottage, of rather better appearance than lodges in the re |