is doubtful whether even their playing could have kept pace with the
hurrying of excited fiddles in a presto passage, or the roll of the big
drum, simulating distant thunder. Be that as it may, the four performers
were pounding along at a breathless pace; and if their pianissimo
passages failed in delicacy, there was no mistake about their fortissimo.

'What an abominable row!' whispered Dr. Rylance. 'Is this what they call
music?'

Urania smiled, and felt meritorious in that, after being chosen as one of
the four for this very 'Zampa,' she had failed ignominiously as a timist,
and had been compelled to cede her place to another pupil.

'I might have toiled for six weeks at the horrid thing,' she thought,
'and papa would have only called it a row.'

'Zampa' ended amidst polite applause, the delighted parents of the four
players feeling that they had not lived in vain. And now the music
mistress took her place at one of the pianos, the top of the instrument
was lowered, and Miss Fane, a little fair girl with a round face and
frizzy auburn hair, came simpering forward to sing 'Una voce,' in a reedy
soprano, which had been attenuated by half-guinea lessons from an Italian
master, and which frequently threatened a snap.

Happily on this occasion the thin little voice got through its work
without disaster; there was a pervading sense of relief when the crisis
was over, and Miss Fane had simpered her acknowledgments of the applause
which rewarded a severely conscientious performance.

'Any more singing?' inquired Dr. Rylance of his daughter, not with the