It must be understood that The Belle of the Opera was not a mere pianist, not a mere strummer upon the harp, she understood music as a _science_, and was therefore capable of conversing upon the subject as well as playing upon an instrument. This power of conversation, resting upon a deep knowledge of subjects, is the secret and charm of association; and it is worthy of remark, that gossip, even among the elevated, soon wearies; and what is more remarkable, it is wearisome and disgusting to children compelled to listen, while conversations or discussions upon subjects well understood by the interlocutors, are at once interesting to general listeners, and attractive, gratifying and instructive even to children. We appeal to general experience for this. Eminently did The Belle of the Opera comprehend that truth, and practice upon it; hence a musical entertainment in her house was not a mere exercise of vocal powers, or a fearful attack upon the piano-keys. Music was _discussed_ and then performed; and music, too, was not alone the theme. The well-lined walls denoted a taste for kindred arts; and the degrees of excellence of pictures, the distinguishing attributes of masters, were so lucidly illustrated, that the junior members of the family grew into connoisseurs without dreaming of study—grew directly and certainly into such characters without forethought, as a blade of corn, in all its greenness, is tending in the warmth of the sun, and the favor of the soil, to produce a golden harvest. But the discipline of mind necessary to acquire the advancement which The Belle of the Opera attained, gave to her habits of care with regard to the education of her children; and the superficial study which makes amateurs in any branch, was unknown in her family. Various degrees of perfection were observable, and in different branches of pursuits and studies there was a superiority among them, according to gifts; but compared with other families, these children evinced pre-eminence in almost every thing they undertook. But it was as a _wife_ that The Belle of the Opera most distinguished herself; we mean the special, particular duties of a woman to her husband—all the other qualifications to which we have referred, were of a kind to make her desirable as a wife—but in constant affection, manifested in various ways in those delicate arts, appreciable but inimitable by man, with which a beautiful and an accomplished woman makes attractive her home, preserves it at once from the restraints of affected knowledge, which is always _chary_ of near display, because fearful of detection, and from that ostentatious exhibition of attainments which wearies and disgusts by obtrusiveness. In all these, and the graces of intimate and reciprocal affection, she made her husband proud of his home, happy in his companion, and gratified at her superiority in those things which belong more especially to her sex and made her beauty beautiful.