“He hasn’t followed my advice about the paper, then? How about his voice? It bid fair to be superb. I hope it has developed well.” “I don’t think it has developed at all,” said Margaret. “Certainly it has had no training worthy the name. It is a shame to see him throwing that magnificent gift away. I have thought of it so much, in hearing Mr. Gaston sing. He has no voice at all, compared to Charley’s, but he has spent such patient labor on its cultivation that his method is exquisite, and his singing would charm any one. Isn’t it a fine thing to think how he worked over it, while all the time he was studying hard at his profession too.” “So Gaston is lucky enough to have won your approbation, in one quarter, at least, though he does come under your ban in another,” said Decourcy. “You are exacting, Margaret, and severe in your ideals: I foresee that I shall be afraid of you. It would be interesting to make the acquaintance of the lucky man who is destined to command your entire approval, and win your fair hand.” Margaret laughed brightly: “Cousin Eugenia says I shall never marry,” she answered; “she says I expect as much as if I were an heiress, and a beauty, and an intellectual prodigy, all in one. But I tell her my comfort is that the sort of man I should care for invariably falls in love with his inferior.” At this point the train glided into the station, and the conversation between the cousins came to an end. CHAPTER XI. Under the stimulating pressure of recent experiences Margaret had taken up her music again, with great ardor and determination. Mr. Gaston had encouraged her to believe that she might yet make a good performer, and had managed to instil into her some of his own spirit of thinking it worth while to achieve the best attainable, even though great proficiency might be out of reach. There was so little time during the day when she could count upon remaining in undisturbed possession of the piano that, for some time before leaving Washington, she had been in the habit of rising earlier and practising for an hour before breakfast, and she was resolved that her visit to Baltimore should not interfere with this routine. Indeed, she would have felt its interruption to be a serious moral retrogression, and so, with Mrs. Guion’s sanction, she kept up her morning labors, and when the family met at breakfast every day, she had already accomplished her allotted period of practising. Alan used to laugh at her about it, and tell her she was becoming Yankeeized. He was apt to be late for breakfast himself, and Mrs. Guion took a great deal of trouble in having things kept hot for him, and would arrange little delicacies for him, much as if he had been an invalid lady, as Margaret more than once remarked with a certain degree of impatience. It quite irritated her to see how his sister pampered and indulged him and how carelessly, and as a matter of course, he accepted it all.