'Did you ever work for mere honour and glory, papa?' asked Urania, with her unpleasant little air of cynicism. 'Well, my love, I confess there has been generally a promise of solid pudding in the background. Pray, who is this Miss Palliser, whom I hear of at every turn, and whom nobody seems to like?' 'There you are mistaken, papa. Miss Palliser has her worshippers, though she is the most disagreeable girl in the school. That silly little Bessie raves about her, and has actually induced Mrs. Wendover to invite her to The Knoll!' 'That is a pity, if the girl is ill-bred and unpleasant,' said Dr. Rylance. 'She's a horror,' exclaimed Urania, vindictively. Five minutes later Dr. Rylance and his daughter made their entrance into the ball-room, which was full of people, and whence came the opening crash of an eight-handed 'Zampa.' Father and daughter went in softly, and with a hushed air, as if they had been going into church; yet the firing of a cannon or two more or less would hardly have disturbed the performers at the two pianos, so tremendous was their own uproar. They were taking the overture in what they called orchestral time; though it is doubtful whether even their playing could have kept pace with the hurrying of excited fiddles in a presto passage, or the roll of the big drum, simulating distant thunder. Be that as it may, the four performers were pounding along at a breathless pace; and if their pianissimo passages failed in delicacy, there was no mistake about their fortissimo. 'What an abominable row!' whispered Dr. Rylance. 'Is this what they call music?' Urania smiled, and felt meritorious in that, after being chosen as one of the four for this very 'Zampa,' she had failed ignominiously as a timist, and had been compelled to cede her place to another pupil. 'I might have toiled for six weeks at the horrid thing,' she thought, 'and papa would have only called it a row.' 'Zampa' ended amidst polite applause, the delighted parents of the four players feeling that they had not lived in vain. And now the music mistress took her place at one of the pianos, the top of the instrument was lowered, and Miss Fane, a little fair girl with a round face and frizzy auburn hair, came simpering forward to sing 'Una voce,' in a reedy soprano, which had been attenuated by half-guinea lessons from an Italian master, and which frequently threatened a snap. Happily on this occasion the thin little voice got through its work without disaster; there was a pervading sense of relief when the crisis was over, and Miss Fane had simpered her acknowledgments of the applause which rewarded a severely conscientious performance. 'Any more singing?' inquired Dr. Rylance of his daughter, not with the air of a man who pants for vocal melody. 'No, the next is the "Moonlight Sonata."'