was practising, yet the youthful hall-porter in the sugar-loaf
buttons was instructed to deny her, and always declared that his
mistress was gone out, with the most admirable assurance.

After some two years of her life of splendour, there were, to be
sure, a good number of morning visitors, who came with SINGLE
knocks, and asked for Captain Walker; but these were no more
admitted than the dandies aforesaid, and were referred, generally,
to the Captain's office, whither they went or not at their
convenience. The only man who obtained admission into the house was
Baroski, whose cab transported him thrice a week to the
neighbourhood of Connaught Square, and who obtained ready entrance
in his professional capacity.

But even then, and much to the wicked little music-master's
disappointment, the dragon Crump was always at the piano, with her
endless worsted work, or else reading her unfailing Sunday Times;
and Baroski could only employ "de langvitch of de ice," as he called
it, with his fair pupil, who used to mimic his manner of rolling his
eyes about afterwards, and perform "Baroski in love" for the
amusement of her husband and her mamma. The former had his reasons
for overlooking the attentions of the little music-master; and as
for the latter, had she not been on the stage, and had not many
hundreds of persons, in jest or earnest, made love to her? What
else can a pretty woman expect who is much before the public? And
so the worthy mother counselled her daughter to bear these
attentions with good humour, rather than to make them a subject of
perpetual alarm and quarrel.

Baroski, then, was allowed to go on being in love, and was never in