'Oh! yes, yes, Gertrude, I acquiesce. They are a great improvement; but then, wasn't it a treat when I got over to Woodside Church the other day, and found them singing, "No change of times shall ever shock"!' and he began to hum it.
'That is the Sicilian Mariners' hymn,' said Averil. 'I can sing you that whenever you please.'
'Thank you; on condition you sing the old Tate and Brady, not your "O Sanctissma, O Purissima,"' said the Doctor, a little mischievously.
'Which is eldest, I wonder?' said Ave, smiling, pleased to comply with any whim of his; though too young to understand the associations that entwine closely around all that has assisted or embodied devotion.
The music went from the sacred to the secular; and Ethel owned that the perfectly pronounced words and admirable taste made her singing very different from that which adorned most dinner-parties. Dr. May intensely enjoyed, and was between tears and bravos at the charge of the Six Hundred, when the two brothers entered, and stood silently listening.
That return brought a change. Aubrey was indeed open and bright, bursting out with eager communications the moment the song ceased, then turning round with winning apologies, and hopes that he was not interrupting; but Tom looked so stiff and polite as to chill every one, and Averil began to talk of the children's bed-time.
The Doctor and Aubrey pressed for another song so earnestly that she consented; but the spirit and animation were gone, and she had no sooner finished than she made a decided move to depart, and Dr. May accompanied the party home.
'Is my father going to put that fellow to bed?' said Tom, yawning, as if injured by the delay of bed-time thus occasioned.
'Your courtesy does not equal his,' said Ethel.
'Nor ever will,' said Tom.