The Master of the Ceremonies. Fenn George Manville

with his violin bow, “but we can’t pick and choose whom one is to sit next in this world.”

      “No, no, we can’t, my son.”

      “And I don’t think that we ought to trouble ourselves about our neighbours, so long as they behave themselves decorously here.”

      “No, no, my son,” said Linnell, senior, thoughtfully. “There’s a deal of wickedness in this world, but I suppose we mustn’t go about throwing stones.”

      “I’m not going to, father, and I’m sure you wouldn’t throw one at a mad dog.”

      “Don’t you think I would, Dick?” with a very sweet smile; and the eyes brightened and looked pleased. “Well, perhaps you are right. Poor brute! Why should I add to its agony?”

      “So long as it didn’t bite, eh, father?”

      “To be sure, Dick; so long as it didn’t bite. I should like to run through that adagio again, Dick, but not if you’re tired, my boy, not if you’re tired.”

      “Tired? No!” cried the young man. “I could keep on all day.”

      “That’s right. I’m glad I taught you. There’s something so soul-refreshing in a bit of music, especially when you are low-spirited.”

      “Which you never are, now.”

      “N-no, not often, say not often, say not often. It makes me a little low-spirited though about that woman and her mother, Dick.”

      “I don’t see why it should.”

      “But it does. Such a noble-looking beautiful creature, and such a hard, vulgar, worldly mother. Ah, Dick, beautiful women are to be pitied.”

      “No, no: to be admired,” said Richard, laughing.

      “Pitied, my boy, pitied,” said the elder, making curves in the air with his bow, while the fingers of his left hand – long, thin, white, delicate fingers – stopped the strings, as if he were playing the bars of some composition. “Your plain women scout their beautiful sisters, and trample upon them, but it is in ignorance. They don’t know the temptations that assail one who is born to good looks.”

      “Why, father, this is quite a homily.”

      “Ah, yes, Dick,” he said, laughing. “I ought to have been a preacher, I think, I am always prosing. Poor things – poor things! A lovely face is often a curse.”

      “Oh, don’t say that.”

      “But I do say it, Dick. It is a curse to that woman upstairs. Never marry a beautiful woman, Dick.”

      “But you did, father.”