"Ah! you are right," said Aveline, "the octaves are the rhymes of music. Look, this is the octave."
"Now, will you go back to the sofa?" he asked.
Aveline shook her head. "I am comfort able here," she said. "I don't mean to move till I grow restless. Will you have the goodness to bring me that tray? I want to look over my tools."
She threw off the handkerchief, and sat playing with her tools and turning them over like a child.
Mr. Haveloc drew a low chair close to hers and began to examine them also.
"Ah!" said Aveline, looking up, "I was just going to advise you to address yourself to sculpture. It is the finest of all the arts."
"Do you place it above poetry?" he asked.
"Sculpture is poetry," said Aveline eagerly, "only it is a universal language. It is the highest art. It is profaned as every thing in these days is profaned, by the language of ridicule and burlesque. But everything in sculpture that is not addressed to the most ideal feelings, becomes disagreeable. The ideal is the atmosphere of sculpture. It does not admit of caricature. Think of Danton's villanous statuettes," and Aveline looked all disgust.
"Ah!" said Mr. Haveloc, "there is one of Liszt, on the drawing-room mantel-piece in my villa—a wonderful likeness."
"And you have not broken it to pieces?" claimed Aveline.