"You flatter me, ma'am," said Reddy; "but if I might speak of my own work--that is, if a man may _ever_ speak of his own work----" "And why not, sir?" asked Mrs. Riley, with a business-like air; "who has so good a right to speak of the work as the man who _done_ it, and knows what's in it?" "That's a very sensible remark of yours, ma'am, and I will therefore take leave to say, that the idea _I_ am proudest of, is the _dark_ and _heavy_ grief of the heart being compared to a _black_ stone, and its _depth_ of misery implied by the _sea_." "Thrue for you," said Mrs. Riley; "and the _blue_ sea--ah! that didn't escape me; that's an elegant touch--the black stone and the blue sea; and black and blue, such a beautiful conthrast!" "I own," said Reddy, "I attempted, in that, the bold and daring style of expression which Byron has introduced." "Oh, he's a fine _pote_ certainly, but he's not moral, sir; and I'm afeard to let my daughter read such combustibles." "But he's grand," said Reddy; "for instance-- 'She walks in beauty like the night.' How fine!" "But how wicked!" said Mrs. Riley. "I don't like that night-walking style of poetry at all, so say no more about it; we'll talk of something else. You admire music, I'm sure." "I adore it, ma'am." "Do you like the piano?" "Oh, ma'am! I could live under a piano." "My daughter plays the piano beautiful." "Charmingly." "Oh, but if you heerd her play the harp, you'd think she wouldn't lave a sthring on it" (this was Mrs. Riley's favourite bit of praise); "and a beautiful harp it is, one of Egan's double action, all over goold, and cost eighty guineas; Miss Cheese chuse it for her. Do you know Miss Cheese? she's as plump as a partridge, with a voice like a lark; she sings elegant duets. Do you ever sing duets?" "Not often." "Ah! if you could hear Pether Dowling sing duets with my daughter! he'd make the hair stand straight on your head with the delight. Oh, he's a powerful singer! you never heerd the like; he runs up and down as fast as a lamplighter;--and the beautiful turns he gives; oh! I never heerd any one sing a second like Pether. I declare he sings a _second_ to that degree _that you'd think it was the first_, and never at a loss for a shake; and then off he goes in a run that you'd think he'd never come back; but he _does_ bring it back into the tune again with as nate a fit as a Limerick glove. Oh! I never heerd a singer like Pether!!!" There is no knowing how much more Mrs. Riley would have said about "Pether," if the end of the dance had not cut her eloquence short by permitting the groups of dancers, as they promenaded, to throw in their desultory discourse right and left, and so break up anything like a consecutive conversation.