"Forgive me; but, even if it is so, your music and your voice is a most soothing accompaniment to much bitterness; it is a pretty fable, that of the nightingale resting her bosom on a thorn, while warbling her finest notes." "It proves to me that the nightingale who does so is a most foolish bird," retorted Frances, rallying, "inasmuch as she might select roses, instead of thorns, and they are both soft and fragrant." "And fading," added Constance: "you perceive I heard you." "Your heart, my dear friend," replied Lady Frances, "only echoes one tone, and that is a melodious melancholy. Shall I sing you 'Withers' Shepherd's Resolution,'--my father's rhyming 'Major-general,' who lorded it so sturdily over the county of Surrey? For my own part, I like the spirit of the man, particularly as it comes forth in the third verse." And with subdued sportiveness she sung:-- "Shall a woman's virtues move Me to perish for her love? Or her well deservings knowne, Make me quite forget mine owne? "Be she with that goodness blest Which may merit name of best; If she be not such to me, What care I how good she be? "Great or good, or kind or fair, I will ne'er the more despair; If she love me, this believe, I will die ere she shall grieve. "If she slight me when I wooe, I can scorne and let her goe, If she be not fit for me, What care I for whom she be?" "Do you not admire it, Constantia?" she said. "Admire what?" "Why, the conceit of the song." "I fear I did not heed it. I was thinking of--of--something else." "Shall I sing it again?" "Not to-night, dearest: and yet you may; methinks it is the last night I shall ever listen to minstrelsy--not but that there is philosophy in music, for it teaches us to forget care; it is to the ear what perfume is to the smell. How exquisite is music! the only earthly joy of which we are assured we shall taste in heaven. Play on." Lady Frances again sung the lay, but with less spirit than before, for she felt it was unheeded by her friend, and she laid the lute silently on the ground when she had finished. "Do you know," said Constance, after a time, "I pity your waiting lady, who was married to Jerry White, as you call him, so unceremoniously." "Pity her!" repeated Lady Frances, with as disdainful a toss of her head, as if she had always formed a part of the aristocracy. "Pity her! methinks the maid was well off to obtain the man who aspired to her mistress." "But she loved him not," observed Constantia, in a sad voice. "Poor Jerry!" laughed Lady Frances, "how could she love him; the Commonwealth jester; wanting only cap, bells, and a hobby-horse, to be fool, _par excellence_, of the British dominions? And yet he is no fool either; more knave than fool, though my father caught him at last." "It was a severe jest," said Constantia.