‘What an abominable instrument a bad organ is!’ I had thought it beautiful, of course.  I asked him what he had been playing.  I said was it not by Mozart; and then I saw his eyebrows go up; so I added, as a saving clause, that perhaps it was something of his own.  ‘My dear girl,’ said he, ‘it was only an entr’acte from an opera of Donizetti’s.’  He was carrying my shawl at the time; and he wrapped it about my shoulders in the tenderest manner as he said this, and made love to me all the evening to console me.  In his opinion, the greatest misfortune that can happen anyone is to make a fool of oneself; and whenever I do it, he pets me in the most delicate manner, as if I were a child who had just got a tumble.  When we settled down here and got the organ, he began to play constantly, and I used to practise the piano in the daytime so as to have duets with him.  But though he was always ready to play whenever I proposed it, he was quite different then from what he was when he played by himself.  He was all eyes and ears, and the moment I played a wrong note he would name the right one.  Then I generally got worse and stopped.  He never lost his patience or complained; but I used to feel that he was urging me on, or pulling me back, or striving to get me to do something which I could not grasp.  Then he would give me up in despair, and play on mechanically from the notes before him, thinking of something else all the time.  I practised harder, and tried again.  I thought at first I had succeeded; because our duets went so smoothly and we were always so perfectly together.  But I discovered—­by instinct I believe—­that instead of having a musical treat, he was only trying to please me.  He thought I liked playing duets with him; and accordingly he used to sit down beside me and accompany me faithfully, no matter how I chose to play.”

“Dear me!  Why doesnt he get Rubinstein to play with him, since he is so remarkably fastidious?”

“It is not so much mechanical skill that I lack; but there is something—­I cannot tell what it is.  I found it out one night when we were at Mrs. Saunders’s.  She is an incurable flirt; and she was quite sure that she had captivated Ned, who is always ready to make love to anyone that will listen to him.”

“A nice sort of man to be married to!”

“He only does it to amuse himself.  He does not really care for them:  I almost wish he did, sometimes; but it is often none the less provoking.  What is worse, no amount of flirtation on my part would make him angry.  What happened at Mrs. Saunders’s was this.  The Scotts, of Putney, were there; and the first remark Ned made to me was, ’Who is the woman that knows how to walk?’ It was Mrs. Scott:  you know you used to say she moved like a panther.  Afterward Mrs. Scott sang ‘Caller Herrin’ in that vulgar Scotch accent that leaks out occasionally in her speech, with Ned at the piano.  Everybody came crowding in to listen; and there was great applause.  I