Elsie had a natural taste for music, and a remarkably sweet voice in
speaking, which, if it had been cultivated, would have made her an
excellent singer; but her uncle was sure that to indulge her with a
musical education would only weaken her mind. Mr. Hogarth had seen
no good come of music. A taste for singing and a fine voice had
been the ruin of thousands--they had been most mischievous to Elsie's
own father, and they had been the chief fascinations which had won upon
his dear sister Mary. She and George Melville had sung duets together,
and from that had been led to try a duet through life; and a very sad
and inharmonious life they had made of it.

So poor Elsie's natural tastes were discouraged and thwarted; and after
the positive lessons were over, and her education was said to be
finished, she felt vacuity and ennui when Jane rejoiced in full
employment. The housekeeping was ostensibly taken by the sisters in
alternate weeks; but though Jane relinquished the keys for the stated
period, she never relinquished the superintendence. She remembered what
Elsie forgot; she looked forward where Elsie would have scrambled in
the best way she could through the passing hour, and constantly
thinking for her and remedying her blunders. Elsie was apt to forget
that any responsibility rested on herself.

Nothing in their singular training was considered odder than
that, while they were educated in a more masculine manner than most
boys, they were obliged at the same time to make a greater proportion
of their own clothes than any girls of their own rank or circumstances,
and that they had been carefully and systematically taught to make them
in the best manner possible. The only instructions which they had
received from one of their own sex had been given to them by an
excellent plain needlewoman, a first-class dressmaker, and a