delightful resource."

"Yes, you have a good voice, an impassioned face and manner--all very
suitable, no doubt; but what will it amount to, after all? You will
never have to earn your bread in that way, and for a home circle you
have always read well enough. It is time wasted, I imagine."

"But the reading is not _all_. I learn to know and comprehend so much
that was sealed from me before; in this way, Shakespeare, Milton, Scott,
all acquire new beauties. By-the-by, this is what your son meant by
studying poetry, perhaps."

"The puppy! Has he been lecturing you, too? Really, there is no end to
his presumption;" and he smiled, benignly, upon him.

"I must defend him from such a charge," I said, earnestly. "I find him
very deferential--he has the courteous European manner, which, when
high-bred, is so polite. Americans never learn to bow like foreign
gentlemen. It is a great charm."

"Do you hear that, Claude? Miss Monfort approves of your bow. This is
all I can extort from her; but she is very hard to please, very
censorious by nature, so don't be entirely discouraged."

A bow of the approved sort, and wave of the hand across the room, in
addition, were the only rejoinder elicited by this sally, and again the
downcast head, the clasped hands, the low, entreating voice denoted the
character of his conference with Evelyn. He was pleading a desperate
cause, it seemed to me.