It did seem a pity that he had no existence. I thought that
probably marriage was the happiest condition for most people, and felt
inclined to discuss the question with the rector's wife, who had had
about twenty-two years' exemplary experience of that state. Then I
should like to have helped to choose the silk--
"At this point I was asked to play.
"I played some favourite things of Miss Brooke's and some of my own,
Mr. Smith turning over the leaves of my music; and then he was asked
to sing, and to my astonishment, prepared to accompany himself. Few
English gentlemen (if any) could accompany their own songs on the
pianoforte in my youth, Ida; most of them then had a wise idea that
the pianoforte was an instrument 'only fit for women,' and would have
as soon thought of trying to learn to play upon it as of studying the
spinning-wheel. I do not know that I had ever heard one play except my
father, who had lived much abroad. When Mr. Smith sat down at the
instrument, I withdrew into a corner, where Miss Martha followed me as
if to talk. But when he began, I think every one was silent.
"The song he sang is an old one now, Ida, but it was comparatively new
then, and it so happened that very few of us had heard it before.
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