respectfully curtain; their accepted masters are chivalrous to them,
deploring their need at times for the doctors and drugs. He stood
looking most unhappy. 'She was to appear, sir, in a few--perhaps a week,
a month.'

A nod dismissed him.

The fun of the expedition (and Dudley Sowerby had wound himself up to
relish it) was at night in the towns, when the sound of instrumental and
vocal music attracted crowds beneath the windows of the hotel, and they
heard zon, zon, violon, fete et basse; not bad fluting, excellent
fiddling, such singing as a maestro, conducting his own Opera, would have
approved. So Victor said of his darlings' voices. Nesta's and her
mother's were a perfect combination; Mr. Barmby's trompe in union,
sufficiently confirmed the popular impression, that they were artistes.
They had been ceremoniously ushered to their carriages, with expressions
of gratitude, at the departure from Rouen; and the Boniface at Gisors had
entreated them to stay another night, to give an entertainment. Victor
took his pleasure in letting it be known, that they were a quiet English
family, simply keeping-up the habits they practiced in Old England: all
were welcome to hear them while they were doing it; but they did not give
entertainments.

The pride of the pleasure of reversing the general idea of English
dulness among our neighbours, was perceived to have laid fast hold of
Dudley Sowerby at Dreux. He was at the window from time to time,
counting heads below. For this reason or a better, he begged Nesta to
supplant the flute duet with the soprano and contralto of the Helena
section of the Mefistofele, called the Serenade: La Luna immobile. She
consulted her mother, and they sang it. The crowds below, swollen to a