"Laugh away; we shall soon see who is right. Moreover, Edgar must take some interest in her, or he would not have recommended her to us so warmly," replies Rohritz.
"Bah! he recommended her to us at the express request of our common friend Leskjewitsch," his wife rejoins.
"True; but----"
"She is a child in comparison with him. He might be her father."
Edmund is silent for a while, and then says, "That is true; she is a child,--and he is very sensible."
CHAPTER XXIV.
[A MUSIC-LESSON.]
Following the advice of the little Italian conductor of the orchestra, Stella refers to him in order to procure more reasonable terms from Signor della Seggiola for her singing-lessons.
These 'more reasonable terms' are twenty-five francs for an hour abbreviated at both ends, and sixty francs a month for a share in the singing-class,--that is, in the musical dissertations which Signor della Seggiola holds three times a week for six or seven pupils in a small room in the Gérard piano-building.
For the sake of those who consider twenty-five francs an hour a tolerably high price for lessons, and who are inclined to regard the leader's recommendation as a humbug, it may be well to state that twenty-five francs is really a lowered price, and that dilettanti usually pay from thirty to thirty-five francs for a private lesson from della Seggiola.