But when all was done those rare and solemn entertainments were very dreary to Cecil. She tried to be interested in her husband's friends; but the legal magnates with whom the great O'Boyneville chiefly associated were not interesting to his young wife; and the wives of the legal magnates seemed to have lost all the freshness and brightness of their youth under the all-pervading influence of such cases as Giddles and Giddles _v._ Clithery, and Shavington _v._ The Estremadura Soap-boiling Company (limited). If Mr. O'Boyneville could have purchased his wife pleasure at any cost save that of his legal position, he would gladly have done so. He saw a pile of Cecil's music-books, heaped on a side-table in the bare, bleak drawing-rooms, and half an hour afterwards bade his clerk convey to Messrs. Broadwood his desire that one of the finest grand pianos that firm could supply, should be delivered without delay in Brunswick Square. Cecil felt a kind of rapture as she ran her fingers over the new keys, and heard the silvery tones of that perfect instrument; for the dowager's cottage, on which she had been wont to perform in Dorset Square, gave forth only feeble tinklings for its treble, and woolly confusion for its bass. After the pleasant surprise occasioned by the arrival of the splendid grand, after a happy day spent in desultory ramblings amongst old music-books, Cecil tripped lightly down to the hall when the banging of doors announced the arrival of her husband's hansom-cab, eager to bid him welcome. She met him, and went with him into the dressing-room, where he was wont to make his brief toilet. "I want to thank you a thousand, thousand times!" she said. "Thank me, my dear! What for?" asked the barrister, washing his hands. "The piano--the beautiful Broadwood!" "What piano?" The great O'Boyneville's mind was either with Giddles _v._ Clithery or the Spanish Soap-boiling Company. Cecil sighed. It seemed as if half the value of the gift was taken away by the indifference of the giver. "I thank you very, very much," she said presently, but all the girlish animation had gone from her manner. "There is nothing in the world you could have given me so welcome as that delightful piano." "I'm very glad you like it, dear; I told them to send you a good one. I caught sight of your music-books on the table in the drawing-room through the open door as I came down to breakfast yesterday morning, and I remembered that music-books couldn't be of any use to you without a piano."