She coloured up and asked me if I knew—I forget the name of the piece: one of Chopin’s, I think. I begged her to play it; but though she went through it in dashing style, I can’t say I was pleased. It was not music—there were no tunes in it. Here and there a little fragment of melody popped up and provoked the fingers into giving chase, but it invariably vanished among the growls of the bass, or finished with a scream amid the writhings and chatterings and shiverings of the treble. I was well aware that it was one of those pieces which the musical public pay half-a-guinea for sofa-stalls to hear, and so I seemed to applaud. That it was as little to my uncle’s taste as mine, I had no doubt; but then it was his daughter who played it, and he couldn’t be captious.
When she rose, he took her place, and made me laugh heartily over his imitation of the Italian opera. He was a capital mimic—struck his breast and clenched his fist as the basso—shrugged his shoulders, and elevated his arm to heaven, as the tenor—squeaked and wailed as the prima donna; and concluded with a duet, making the oddest noises with his mouth, in excellent imitation of a violoncello. This done, he bowed to the room, and pretended to collect bouquets.
I passed the rest of the evening in playing double-dummy with him, while Theresa sat near us, sometimes reading, but more often watching the game.
CHAPTER IX.
“The circulating hours dividing
’Twixt reading, walking, eating, riding.”
Jenyns.
A regular account of my doings during my stay at uncle Dick’s house would be rather wearisome. It would be a different matter if I had the ability to make the record as pleasant as the experience.