This is, perhaps, a rather elaborate method of intimating that Dr. Mangan played the violin, moderately as to technique, but soundly as to intonation, and that he and his family sang, as a quartet, not only at charity concerts, but also for their own pleasure, in their own home.  Music, more than the other arts, demands sympathy, and an audience.  In Larry, the Mangan Quartet recognised that both requirements were supplied, together with a glorifying enthusiasm of appreciation—­though this they scarcely recognised—­that gilded for him their achievements, as the firelight had edged the profile of Nurse Brennan with pure gold.  Larry, it has already been said, had the artistic temperament; he had also a generous heart, and he was of an age when appreciation is spontaneous, and criticism is either unborn, or is only an echo of some maturer mind.  Therefore, as he lay on the Mangan blue rep-covered drawing-room sofa, with a satin cushion adorned with Tishy’s conception of roses, in water-colour, under his head, while pretty Nurse Brennan gently massaged his wrist, and the Mangan Quartet warbled:  “O, believe me if all those endearing young charms,” or “When thro’ life unblest we rove,” Larry passed into ecstasy, that, had he been one degree less of a schoolboy, might have been exhaled in tears; even as the sun draws water from the sea, in a mist of glory, and returns it to the world again in rain.

Tishy was accompanist, and sang alto; her mother, who knew nothing of notation, and sang by ear, sang treble; Barty had a supple and pleasing tenor, and the Doctor possessed a solemn bass, deep and dark as a thundercloud, yet mellow as the hum of a hive of honey-bees on a summer morning; a rare voice and a beautiful one, that had its counterpart in the contralto that already, at sixteen and a half, had given Tishy power and distinction among her fellows.

At this time, Miss Letitia Mangan’s views, and those of her parents, as to her future, musical or otherwise, were entirely divergent.  Hers held as central figure a certain medical student, with an incipient red moustache, and a command of boxes of chocolate that was bewildering to those acquainted with his income.  Quite other were Dr. Mangan’s intentions with regard to his daughter, but he was satisfied to keep them out of sight; he was aware that, in all solid buildings, the deeper and farther out of sight the foundation, the more assured is the result.

It is possible that the idea of a farewell entertainment in Larry’s honour emanated from the Big Doctor; if so, he had erased his tracks very thoroughly, and it was regarded by Mrs. Mangan’s intimates as a final brandishing of her trophy before she was forced to relinquish it.  Larry was indisputably a trophy, and Heaven was considered to have exercised a very undue discrimination in Mrs. Mangan’s favour when it threw him into her house and her hands.  It was a very select party, only a score or so of boys and girls, with the elders appertaining to them.  Nurse Brennan had departed, taking with her Larry’s young affections, and a gift, costly and superfluous, of a silver-mounted mirror, which was accompanied by some chaste lines, expressive of Master Coppinger’s desire to share its privileges, whose composition had kept him happy throughout a long, wet afternoon.