“Well, then, yours has most power, but it is wiry. Miss Linnie’s is more flexible, more emotional. She feels more than you do, or, rather, more than you _seem_ to, when she sings. If you were both equally to cultivate your voices, and also continue your practice for the next five years, Linnie would win more applause for her singing, and you for your playing. That is my opinion; but I ought to add, as the French do, _maintenant je n’en sais rien_.” Then the count made them both speak French, he carefully constructing his sentences as much as possible after _Fasquelle’s French Course_, which he knew was their text-book, they having no idea of the reason why they were able to get along so well with him. He understood their worst sentences like a Parisian. Any foreigner who has been in Paris will understand that. He will recall how, in his abominable murdering of the language, sentences which he could not for his life have understood himself, written or spoken, were instantly seized and graciously and gravely replied to, as if they had been models of elegance. When the count finished singing a charming aria in his best style, Linnie said, with enthusiasm, “Oh, I wish my sister Clara could hear you sing!” “She shall hear me sing,” he said, looking up to Linnie, who stood on his left, with an expression in his face that she had never seen there. It affected her senses like a caress. Pretty soon the doctor entered; and after greeting the count, he said, “What a fusillade of French! What a state of excitement these girls are in! I believe you are bewitching them both, Frauenstein.” “On the contrary, I am the victim of both, and I dare not stay another moment. I have come to take you over the river. I want you to see my fifty acres, on which I am going to build a social palace, if the gods are propitious.”