produced by the most wary and appreciative tenderness of rendering. In
the interval between the first and second parts, the very general hum
of conversation announces how great the degree of familiarity
subsisting among the _habitués_. There is none of the common stiffness
of waiting one sees at ordinary entertainments. Everybody seems to
know everybody else, and one general atmosphere of genial intercourse
prevails throughout the room.

Let us change the scene to a classic concert of quite another kind. In
a quiet West-end street, we are in a room of singular construction. It
is in the form of a right-angled triangle; and at the right angle,
upon a small dais, is placed the pianoforte and the desks, and so
forth, for the performers. The latter are thus visible from all
points; but about one-half the audience in each angle of the room is
quite hidden from the other. Everybody is in evening dress; the ladies
very gay, and the party very quiet--a still, drawing-room sort of air
presides over the whole. Many of the ladies are young--quite girls;
and a good many of the gentlemen are solemn old foggies, who appear
strongly inclined to go to sleep, and, in fact, sometimes do.
Meantime, the music goes on. A long, long sonata or concerto--piano
and violin, or piano, violin, and violoncello--is listened to in
profound silence, with a low murmur of applause at the end of each
movement. Then perhaps comes a little vocalism--sternly classic
though--an aria from Gluck, or a solemn and pathetic song from
Mendelssohn: the performer being either a well-known concert-singer,
or a young lady--very nervous and a little uncertain--who, it is
whispered, is 'an Academy girl;' a pupil, that is, of the institution
in question. Sometimes, but not often--for it is _de rigueur_ that
entertainments of this species shall be severely classic--we have a
phenomenon of execution upon some out-of-the-way instrument, who