Papa gave a start and a shake, and said, with well-feigned vehemence,
"Ay, do, my dear," and so composed himself--to listen; and Helen sat down
and played the quadrilles.

The composer had taken immortal melodies, some gay, some sad, and had
robbed them of their distinctive character and hashed them till they were
all one monotonous rattle. But General Rolleston was little the worse for
all this. As Apollo saved Horace from hearing a poetaster's rhymes, so
did Somnus, another beneficent little deity, rescue our warrior from his
daughter's music.

She was neither angry nor surprised. A delicious smile illumined her face
directly; she crept to him on tiptoe, and bestowed a kiss, light as a
zephyr, on his gray head. And, in truth, the bending attitude of this
supple figure, clad in snowy muslin, the virginal face and light hazel
eyes beaming love and reverence, and the airy kiss, had something
angelic.

She took her candle, and glided up to her bedroom. And, the moment she
got there, and could gratify her somnolence without offense, need we say
she became wide-awake? She sat down and wrote long letters to three other
young ladies, gushing affection, asking questions of the kind nobody
replies to, painting, with a young lady's colors, the male being to whom
she was shortly to be married, wishing her dear friends a like demigod,
if perchance earth contained two; and so to the last new bonnet and
preacher.

She sat over her paper till one o'clock, and Seaton watched and adored
her shadow.