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freshing after the whirl and excitement of the dance. How sweetly the music sounds

here, too!

are playing.

here to-night.

That's a splendid waltz they

How I wish they had a harp

I doat so on the harp.

Don't you, Miss Dernevor?"

"It is a beautiful instrument, certainly." "But did I ever tell you my plan for the improvement of the lower orders of society-quite an original design, I flatter myself. Now, as the education of the taste is the great thing needed amongst the peasant population, who are addicted to low practices and vices, my plan would be to instruct all the young girls in every village in the art of playing the harp. Only consider a moment, my dear Miss Dernevor, what a revolution it would make in the social life of the rural districts! Would it

be possible that those who could take pleasure in listening to such divine sounds, could afterwards endure the tobacco and alepoisoned atmosphere of a public-house? And then, how picturesque it would look! only imagine! Suppose it to be a summer evening, the sun just setting; a fine tree flings its tall shadow before a pretty, rosecovered cottage; a village maiden sits beneath it bending over her harp; young and old have gathered round her to listen : would it not be sweetly pretty?"

“And yet, I fear, there is an insurmountable obstacle to the execution of your project, Lady Wardlaw."

"Oh! I delight in obstacles: all plans would be tame and uninteresting without them."

"But if they should prove insuperable?

have you computed the immense outlay that would be requisite for the carrying out of such a design?"

"Allow me to calculate it roughly for you, Lady Wardlaw," said Sir Arthur Loder. "Now there are, I believe, about eleven thousand parishes in England and Wales; therefore, supposing we were to deduct four thousand for the town parishes, we should have, of course, seven thousand remaining. Four harps would not be too many to allow for each village, I should imagine, if all the young damsels were to learn, and twenty-eight thousand harps would cost, besides the expenses of tuition and music, £1,400,000, at fifty pounds per harp, scarcely too high a price, considering your exquisite ear and taste, Lady Wardlaw, which would be offended by the tones of

any very inferior instruments.

So you

perceive it would be rather an expensive whim to indulge, if we were to compute the vast additional sums that would be required for the salaries of the teachers, for the purchase of the printed music-"

"I protest I won't hear another word, Sir Arthur," interrupted Lady Wardlaw, vivaciously, "I detest calculations; they are so unsatisfactory; they absolutely destroy all the poetry of life."

A gentleman now solicited Lady Wardlaw's hand for the ensuing dance; and forgetful of her fatigue, she was soon as enthralled by its witching excitement as the youngest and liveliest of the throng. Sir Arthur Loder availed himself of the vacant place she had left on the sofa; but Geraldine, who began to feel wearied, rose almost

immediately after, in the hope of being able to retire unobserved.

"Allow me to conduct you, Miss Dernevor, if you really must leave us so soon." And there was a peculiar expression on Sir Arthur's countenance-a scarcely perceptible assumption of jealous authority in his manner that disquieted her, and while it aroused her pride, caused her to be unpleasantly aware that her stay at Loder House was becoming more and more objectionable, and might shortly be impossible.

"So you are going already, Miss Dernevor," exclaimed Lady Ida Illford, who was passing. "Well, I am quite as wearied as you can be with the world below, and have a vast inclination to ascend to your paradise for half-an-hour's happiness and repose; will

you admit me ?"

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