She struck the piano, and I breathed freely. But anything more distressing and feeble than her performance I never listened to. Why, Conny was a Patti and a Thalberg rolled into one compared to her! The song she sung was “Cease, rude Boreas,” of all the songs ever written, the one, to my mind, the least suitable for a woman’s voice. She was for ever striking the wrong notes, pausing often to cough or think, and singing with such ludicrous affectation, that it cost me an immense effort to preserve my gravity. Her father lost patience at the end of the first stanza, and exclaimed, “What’s the use of asking Boreas to cease, when all the while you’re raising a worse squall than ever he was known to blow? I never heard you sing like this before.” “I hate singing,” she answered, rising from the music-stool, which she overturned again. This time I didn’t offer to pick it up. Neither did she; and thus I was placed in an abominably awkward position, for her father, of course, wondered at my want of manners. “How awkward you are!” he exclaimed, peevishly, making a tremendous but futile effort to reach the stool himself. She laughed, and coolly put the stool on end with her foot. “I’ll finish the song if my cousin likes,” said she. “No, thank you. He’s had enough of it, I’ll warrant. Come along into the garden, my boy, and let us breathe some fresh air.” As we went out, he said: “How wretchedly my daughter sang! Would you believe that she has a fine contralto voice, and can play the piano brilliantly?” I was amazed by his perverse partiality, which persisted in attributing all kinds of graces and perfections to a girl who seemed to me to be wanting in everything but a good figure and a handsome face. “Perhaps she was nervous,” said I, secretly ridiculing the absurdity of my remark. “I don’t think that was the reason,” he answered, “although she _is_ nervous. She is courageous in many things--would ride in a steeple-chase, let off a cannon, or handle a spider. But in society she is very bashful and shy, will shrink within herself if she finds that she attracts attention (which she generally does), and, I really believe, would prefer to lead a forlorn hope up a hill, than parade to and fro before rows of lookers-on, such as you get at the seaside, and in public gardens.” “She doesn’t give me the impression of being nervous in any sense,” I answered, thinking how true was the saying, that the last person to know a child’s character was the parent.