"No, of course I don't object to having music. But it is an accessory, not an object, in life. It is, after all, a physical comfort, a pleasant vibration in one's ears. To make an object of it is sensuality. It is on all-fours with worshipping the wallpaper. Some wall-papers are very beautiful things nowadays, harmonious in form and colour, skilful in invention; but people do not expect you to sit down and admire wall-paper, or promise you 'wallpaper at eight.' Neither do they put an extinguisher over any girl who does not go with the wall-paper, or expect you to dress in neutral tint on account of it, and they are not hurt if you go away without seeming to see it. Gustatory harmony, too, is very delicious. Yet there is no hush during dinner; they do not insist upon a persistent gnawing in honour of the feast. But these musical people! their god is their piano. They set up an idol in their salon, and command all the world to bow down to it. They found a priestcraft of pianists, and an Inquisition of fiddlers. When I came away they were all crowded round a violin, the women especially. They could not have fussed more if it had been a baby. They stroked it and admired its figure. It _had_ rather a fashionable figure, but the neck was too long...." I began to suspect the cause of this bitterness. "Yes. She was there. And while some of this piano was going on she looked at the ear of the man who was playing with a dreamy, tender look.... No. I couldn't get a word with her the whole evening." THE JOYS OF BEING ENGAGED As I was passing the London University the other day I saw my uncle emerge from the branch of the Bank of England opposite, and proceed in the direction of the Burlington Arcade. He was elaborately disguised as a young man, even to the youthful flower, and I was incontinently smitten with curiosity respecting the dark purpose he might veil in this way. There is, to me, a peculiar and possibly rather a childish fascination in watching my more intimate friends unobserved, and, curiously enough, I had never before studied the avuncular back view. I found something singularly entertaining in the study of the graceful contour of his new frock coat, and in the cheerful carriage of his cane. He paraded, a dignified procession of one, some way down the Arcade, hesitated for a moment outside a jeweller's shop, and then entered it. I strolled on as far as Piccadilly, returned to the shop, and so fell upon him suddenly in the midst of his buying. "Hullo, George!" he said hastily, facing me so as to hide as much of the counter as possible. "How's Euphemia?" I looked him fairly in the eye. "You are buying a _ring_," I said in a firm, decided voice. He turned to the counter with an air of surprise. "By Jove, so I am!" "A lady's ring," I said. He was, I could see, hastily collecting his sufficiently nimble powers of subterfuge. "One must buy something, you know, George, sometimes," he said feebly.