“The Model of all the Virtues” had a pair of searching eyes as clear as Wenham ice; but they were slower to melt than that fickle jewelry.  Her features disordered themselves slightly at times in a surface-smile, but never broke loose from their corners and indulged in the riotous tumult of a laugh,—­which, I take it, is the mob-law of the features;—­and propriety the magistrate who reads the riot-act.  She carried the brimming cup of her inestimable virtues with a cautious, steady hand, and an eye always on them, to see that they did not spill.  Then she was an admirable judge of character.  Her mind was a perfect laboratory of tests and reagents; every syllable you put into breath went into her intellectual eudiometer, and all your thoughts were recorded on litmus-paper.  I think there has rarely been a more admirable woman.  Of course, Miss Iris was immensely and passionately attached to her.—­Well,—­these are two highly oxygenated adverbs, —­grateful,—­suppose we say,—­yes,—­grateful, dutiful, obedient to her wishes for the most part,—­perhaps not quite up to the concert pitch of such a perfect orchestra of the virtues.

We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it much.  People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything than is good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirable subjects for biographies.  But we don’t always care most for those flat-pattern flowers that press best in the herbarium.

This immaculate woman,—­why could n’t she have a fault or two?  Is n’t there any old whisper which will tarnish that wearisome aureole of saintly perfection?  Does n’t she carry a lump of opium in her pocket?  Is n’t her cologne-bottle replenished oftener than its legitimate use would require?  It would be such a comfort!

Not for the world would a young creature like Iris have let such words escape her, or such thoughts pass through her mind.  Whether at the bottom of her soul lies any uneasy consciousness of an oppressive presence, it is hard to say, until we know more about her.  Iris sits between the Little Gentleman and the “Model of all the Virtues,” as the black-coated personage called her.—­I will watch them all.

—­Here I stop for the present.  What the Professor said has had to make way this time for what he saw and heard.

-And now you may read these lines, which were written for gentle souls who love music, and read in even tones, and, perhaps, with something like a smile upon the reader’s lips, at a meeting where these musical friends had gathered.  Whether they were written with smiles or not, you can guess better after you have read them.

The opening of the piano.

     In the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen
     With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green,
     At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right,
     Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night.