Well, then, the fact is, I never was fond of needle-work at the best of times, and really and truly, I never could see the fun of passing the heyday of one’s youth darning stockings, and cobbling up a pack of old clothes as full of holes as a cinder shovel. So I longed to have an instrument just to amuse myself with for an hour or two in the day, or play over an air or two to Edward of an evening. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t got any music-books; besides, I really and truly was sick and tired of doing kettle-holders and working a pack of filthy copper kettles in Berlin wool with a stupid “Mind it boils” underneath them, or else working a lot of braces and slippers for Edward, which, in his nasty vulgar way, he said were too fine by half for use, or else sitting for hours with your toe cocked up in the air netting purses and spending a mint of money in steel beads for a pack of people that you didn’t care twopence about, and who never gave you so much as a trumpery ring or brooch in return (I hate such meanness). So I wouldn’t let Edward have any peace until he promised to get me a piano; for, as I very truly observed, I had been out of practice so long, that I should be very much surprised if on sitting down to a piano, I didn’t find the cries of the wounded in the “Battle of Prague” too much for me, and I was sure that I should break down in the runs in the “Bird Waltz,” even supposing I was able to manage the shakes. And as for the matter of my voice, I told him I had serious alarms about losing my G, and if I did I should never forgive myself, after the money that had been spent on my musical education at Boulogne-sur-mer alone, and I was sure that if I had to begin anew with my singing exercises, and was to be put in the scales again, that I should be found wanting. Besides, I concluded the business by giving him to understand, that it wasn’t so much for myself that I wanted the piano, after all, but of course my darling little toodle-loodle-loo of a Kate, in two or three years at least must have an instrument to begin practising upon, and if he didn’t get one before that, I was sure I shouldn’t be able to tell the difference between A flat and a bull’s foot, and he would have to go to I know not what expense in masters for her, and then he would be ready to cut his ears off for not having got me a piano when I begged of him. I am happy to say that Edward for once was not deaf to reason, but seeing that I wanted the piano more out of love for little Kate than from any selfish motive on my part, he very properly consented to look out for one for me, although my gentleman couldn’t let well alone, but must go cutting his stupid jokes, saying that he was very much afraid that the piano was only “one for the pot” over again; but I very quickly silenced my lord by merely exclaiming, in my most sarcastic way, “Fiddle.”