supposed to be in store for me, and have opened doors which shall
not be closed again."

"You will get some one to recite to you?" entreated Aurelia, her voice
most unsteady.

"Godfrey shall seek out some poor scholar or exhausted poetaster,
with a proviso that he never inflicts his own pieces on me," said Mr.
Belamour, in a tone more as if he wished to console her than as it
were a pleasing prospect. "Never fear, gentle monitress, I will
not sink into the stagnation from which your voice awoke me.
Neither Godfrey nor my nephew would allow it. Come, let us put it
from our minds. It has always been my experience, that whatever I
expected from my much admired sister-in-law, that was the exact
reverse of what she actually did. Therefore let us attend to
topics, though I wager that you have no fresh acquisitions for
me to-day."

"I am ashamed, sir, but I could not fix my mind even to a most
frightful description of wolves in Mr. Thomson's 'Winter.'"

"That were scarcely a soothing subject; but we might find calm in
something less agitating and more familiar. Perhaps you can recall
something too firmly imprinted on your memory to be disturbed by
these emotions."

Aurelia bethought herself that she must not disappoint her friend on
what might prove their last evening; she began very unsteadily:--