When the bravura was over, Pyam Dodge, who had stood listening in amazement, looked at Mrs. Brantley, and said: "Madam, your child must doubtless sing that song very well when she gets the right tune." "The right tune!" interrupted Augusta, indignantly. "The right tune!" echoed Mrs. Brantley and Miss Frampton. "Yes," said Pyam Dodge, solemnly--"and the right words also. For what I have just heard is, of course, neither the regular tune nor the proper words, as they seem to go every how--therefore I conclude that all this wandering and confusion was caused by the presence of strangers: myself, in all probability, being the greatest stranger, if I may be so bold as to say so. This is doubtless the reason why she mixed up the words at random, and repeated the same so often, and why her actions at the pyano-forty are so strange. I trust that at other times she plays and sings so as to give the proper sense." Augusta violently shut down the lid of the piano, and gave her father a look that implied: "Won't you turn him out of the house?" But Mr. Brantley was much diverted, and laughed audibly. Pyam Dodge surveyed himself from head to foot, ascertained that his knee-buckles were fast, and his cravat not untied, and, finding all his clothes in complete order, he said, looking round to the company: "I hope there is nothing ridiculous about me. It is my endeavour to appear as well as possible; but the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." "Upon my word," said Miss Frampton, leaning across the centre-table to Mrs. Brantley, "your _protegée_ seems to have a strange taste in her acquaintances. However, that is always the case with people who have never been in society, as my friend Mrs. Tom Spradlington justly remarks." A waiter with refreshments was now brought in, and handed round to the company. When it came to Pyam Dodge, he rose on his feet, and thanked the man for handing it to him; then, taking the smallest possible quantity of each of the different articles, he put all on the same plate, and, unfolding his blue bandanna, he spread it carefully and smoothly over his knees, and commenced eating with the smallest possible mouthfuls, praising everything as he tasted it. The wine being offered to him, he respectfully declined it, signifying that he belonged to the Temperance Society. But he afterwards took a glass of lemonade, on being assured that it was not punch, and again rising on his feet, he drank the health of each of the company separately, and not knowing their names, he designated them as the lady in the blue gown, the lady in the white gown, the gentleman in the black coat, &c.