BOOK 1

I. THE POLES PRELUDE II.  THE EXPEDITION BY MOONLIGHT III.  WILFRID’S DIPLOMACY IV.  EMILIA’S FIRST TRIAL IN PUBLIC V. EMILIA PLAYS ON THE CORNET VI.  EMILIA SUPPLIES THE KEY TO HERSELF AND CONTINUES HER PERFORMANCE ON THE CORNET VII.  THREATS OF A CRISIS IN THE GOVERNMENT OF BROOKFIELD:  AND OF THE VIRTUE RESIDENT IN A TAIL-COAT VIII.  IN WHICH A BIG DRUM SPEEDS THE MARCH OF EMILIA’S HISTORY IX.  THE RIVAL CLUBS X. THE LADIES OF BROOKFIELD AT SCHOOL

CHAPTER I

We are to make acquaintance with some serious damsels, as this English generation knows them, and at a season verging upon May.  The ladies of Brookfield, Arabella, Cornelia, and Adela Pole, daughters of a flourishing City-of-London merchant, had been told of a singular thing:  that in the neighbouring fir-wood a voice was to be heard by night, so wonderfully sweet and richly toned, that it required their strong sense to correct strange imaginings concerning it.  Adela was herself the chief witness to its unearthly sweetness, and her testimony was confirmed by Edward Buxley, whose ear had likewise taken in the notes, though not on the same night, as the pair publicly proved by dates.  Both declared that the voice belonged to an opera-singer or a spirit.  The ladies of Brookfield, declining the alternative, perceived that this was a surprise furnished for their amusement by the latest celebrity of their circle, Mr. Pericles, their father’s business ally and fellow-speculator; Mr. Pericles, the Greek, the man who held millions of money as dust compared to a human voice.  Fortified by this exquisite supposition, their strong sense at once dismissed with scorn the idea of anything unearthly, however divine, being heard at night, in the nineteenth century, within sixteen miles of London City.  They agreed that Mr. Pericles had hired some charming cantatrice to draw them into the woods and delightfully bewilder them.  It was to be expected of his princely nature, they said.  The Tinleys, of Bloxholme, worshipped him for his wealth; the ladies of Brookfield assured their friends that the fact of his being a money-maker was redeemed in their sight by his devotion to music.  Music was now the Art in the ascendant at Brookfield.  The ladies (for it is as well to know at once that they were not of that poor order of women who yield their admiration to a thing for its abstract virtue only)—­the ladies were scaling society by the help of the Arts.  To this laudable end sacrifices were now made to Euterpe to assist them.  As mere daughters of a merchant, they were compelled to make their house not simply attractive, but enticing; and, seeing that they liked music, it seemed a very agreeable device.  The Tinleys of Bloxholme still kept to dancing, and had effectually driven away Mr. Pericles from their gatherings.  For Mr. Pericles said: