"I am surprised you waste so much time in this discussion," said Mr. Ombre, who was standing near the parties debating on the latter point; "there can be no question as to the merits of the case--Sontag is new." "Is she not enchanting?" asked Lady Tilney, addressing Lord Albert D'Esterre, who had been listening with the utmost attention--"quite perfection!" He smiled; "I do not know that I ever heard or saw any thing _quite perfect_; at all events, I prefer Pasta." "Well, you surprise me!" replied Lady Baskerville; "there is such brilliancy--such lightness, such fluency in the Sontag." "But there is more depth, more pathos, more poetry in Pasta. Nevertheless I admire Mademoiselle Sontag; and because I prefer one, I am not deaf to the powers of another singer--a feeling of the sublime does not exclude the lesser sense of the beautiful."--"What a prosing, sententious popinjay; ay!" whispered Lord Baskerville to Lady Ellersby. "But he is very handsome," she answered. "I know not what you ladies may esteem handsome" (and here Lord Baskerville put himself in his best possible form, and bent his cane against the ground); "but I can see nothing in that stiff conceited face and figure to call handsome; and I would not be doomed to listen to his affected pretensions for half an hour together on any condition whatever--no, not to hear Sontag sing three songs consecutively--beautiful, charming, dear as she is!" "Does beauty enter in at the ears?" asked Spencer Newcombe. "Not exactly; but it goes a great way towards making what does enter there agreeable," replied Lord Baskerville. "What do you say, Sir Henry D'Aubigne," addressing that celebrated artist: "is not the Sontag exceedingly lovely?" "Indeed I have not yet had an opportunity of judging," was Sir Henry's discreet reply; for he gave offence to none. "There is considerable grace and play of countenance certainly; a fine-cut eye; and on the whole I should say she was a very pretty creature. But really, in this land of beauty, (looking round him as he spoke), one may be allowed to be difficult, and where there is so much to dazzle, confess oneself unable to decide." "Sir Henry is almost as graceful in his speech as in his portraits; I wish I were such a poet!" sighed Mr. Ombre, "and then I might hope to turn all the ladies' hearts, for they accept your homage, but will not mine, although I never flatter." Thus did the poet and the painter mutually pay their allotted fealties to the sovereigns of _ton_, when the whisper ran round the room that the Sontag was again about to sing. During the performance, Lord Albert D'Esterre was standing at the back of Lady Hamlet Vernon's chair, addressing to her, at intervals, his conversation on the merits of the singer. "I am told," said Lady Hamlet Vernon, when the music ceased, "that the Sontag is very like Lady Adeline Seymour. You will know, Lord Albert D'Esterre?" Lord Albert coloured.