“My sister says, she wonders why so many women spend so much time over the one art in which they have shown their deficiency—­that is, music.”

“Their deficiency?  I think they show their proficiency, only that I do not care about it; that is probably my fault, and not theirs.”

“But Jane says, that as so many thousands—­and even millions—­of women are taught music, and not one has been anything but a fourth-rate composer, it shows a natural incapacity for the highest branch of the art.  In poetry and painting, where the cultivation is far rarer, greater excellence has been attained by many women.  Their inferiority is certainly not so marked as in music.”

“That is rather striking, Miss Melville; but I did not expect such an admission from such a quarter.  I see you are not strong-minded My aunt, Mrs. Rutherford, and her daughters, have rather been boring me with their theory of the equality of the sexes:  this is a first-rate argument.  Will you take it very much amiss if I borrow your idea, or rather your sister’s, without acknowledgement?  I have felt so very small, because they were always bringing up some instance or other out of books which I had never read, that to bring forward something as good as this, might make them have a better opinion of me.”

“I am sure neither Jane nor I would care about the appropriation of the idea, though it seems rather treacherous to put ours into our enemy’s hands.”

“Your enemy’s!—­that is hard language for me.  I trusted to your being friendly.”

In spite of Mr. Brandon’s expressed admiration for Miss Rennie’s verses, he got soon tired of reading them, and preferred the intervals of conversation between the pieces.  Before they had looked through more than half of the album, which was a very large one, he proposed to return to the dancing-room, and Elsie reluctantly left the book on the library table, hoping to snatch another half-hour to finish it.  Miss Rennie’s verses were decidedly inferior to her own;—­even her recent humiliation could not prevent her from seeing this, and she felt a good deal inspirited.

Several times during the evening, she was on the point of mentioning Peggy Walker’s name to her old master, but she knew too much about them to be able to do it with ease; she, however, ascertained that he was to be some time in and about Edinburgh, and learned from Miss Rennie where Mrs. Rutherford lived, so that she could tell Peggy where she might find him, if she wished to see him.

In the quadrille which Elsie danced with Mr. Brandon, William Dalzell and Laura Wilson were at first placed as vis-a-vis, but they moved to the side, and Elsie had the pleasure of seeing her sister and cousin instead.  But both sisters could not but hear the familiar voice making the same sort of speeches to Miss Wilson that he had done a few months ago to Jane.  How very poor and hollow they appeared now!  Elsie thought Miss Wilson would just suit him.  She was rich enough to make him overlook her defects of understanding and temper, and what was even harder to manage, her very ordinary face and figure.  There was an easy solution of Mr. Dalzell’s cultivating the acquaintance of the Rennies in this wished-for introduction to the wealthy ward