So quiet is the reclining form, that the pianist thinks her father must be sleeping. Turning on the music-stool to get a view of his countenance, and to satisfy herself as to his state, she makes a false note, when, quick as the blunder, the brown wig turns upon the pillow--the furrowed face is presented to her observation, and an electric brightness fills the big black eyes, as the veteran, with deep rolling tones, reproves her carelessness:--"What are you doing?--what are you doing? I had almost forgotten the world. Play that piece again." Twelve months more--and the lady will be playing Handel's music on that same instrument; but the old man will not be a listener. From Brighton, in 1805, let readers transport themselves to Canterbury in 1776, and let them enter a barber's shop, hard by Canterbury Cathedral. It is a primitive shop, with the red and white pole over the door, and a modest display of wigs and puff-boxes in the window. A small shop, but, notwithstanding its smallness, the best shop of its kind in Canterbury; and its lean, stiff, exceedingly respectable master is a man of good repute in the cathedral town. His hands have, ere now, powdered the Archbishop's wig, and he is specially retained by the chief clergy of the city and neighborhood to keep their false hair in order, and trim the natural tresses of their children. Not only have the dignitaries of the cathedral taken the worthy barber under their special protection, but they have extended to his little boy Charles, a demure, prim lad, who is at this present time a pupil in the King's School, to which academy clerical interest gained him admission. The lad is in his fourteenth year; and Dr. Osmund Beauvoir, the master of the school, gives him so good a character for industry and dutiful demeanor, that some of the cathedral ecclesiastics have resolved to make the little fellow's fortune--by placing him in the office of a Chorister. There is a vacant place in the cathedral choir; and the boy who is lucky enough to receive the appointment will be provided for munificently. He will forthwith have a maintenance, and in course of time his salary will be L70 per annum.