As for me, my admiration for the child was immense, and my respect for her character unbounded; and I felt myself such a base unworthy brute that I couldn't bear to think of myself in such a connection--until I had cleansed myself heart and soul (which would take time)! And as for showing by my manner to her that such an idea had ever crossed my mind, the thought never entered my head. She was just my dear sister's devoted friend; her petticoat hem was still some inches from the ground, and her hair in a plait all down her back.... Girlish innocence and purity incarnate--that is what she seemed; and what she was. "La plus forte des forces est un coeur innocent," said Victor Hugo--and if you translate this literally into English, it comes to exactly the same, both in rhythm and sense. * * * * * When Barty sold out, he first thought he would like to go on the stage, but it turned out that he was too tall to play anything but serious footmen. Then he thought he would be a singer. We used to go to the opera at Drury Lane, where they gave in English a different Italian opera every night;--and this was always followed by _Acis and Galatea_. We got our seats in the stalls every evening for a couple of weeks, through the kindness of Mr. Hamilton Braham, whom Barty knew, and who played Polyphemus in Handel's famous serenata. I remember our first night; they gave _Masaniello_, which I had never seen; and when the tenor sang, "Behold how brightly breaks the morning," it came on us both as a delicious surprise--it was such a favorite song at Brossard's--"_amis! la matinée est belle_...." Indeed, it was one of the songs Barty sang on the boulevard for the poor woman, six or seven years back. The tenor, Mr. Elliot Galer, had a lovely voice; and that was a moment never to be forgotten. Then came _Acis and Galatea_, which was so odd and old-fashioned we could scarcely sit it out. [Illustration: "'PILE OU FACE--HEADS OR TAILS?'"] Next night, _Lucia_--charming; then again _Acis and Galatea_, because we had nowhere else to go. "Tiens, tiens!" says Barty, as the lovers sang "the flocks shall leave the mountains"; "c'est diantrement joli, ça!--écoute!" Next night, _La Sonnambula_--then again _Acis and Galatea_. "Mais, nom d'une pipe--elle est _divine_, cette musique-là!" says Barty. And the nights after we could scarcely sit out the Italian opera that preceded what we have looked upon ever since as among the divinest music in the world. So one must not judge music at a first hearing; nor poetry; nor pictures at first sight; unless one be poet or painter or musician one's self--not even then! I may live to love thee yet, oh _Tannhäuser_! Lucy Escott, Fanny Huddart, Elliot Galer, and Hamilton Braham--that was the cast; I hear their voices now.... One morning Hamilton Braham tried Barty's voice on the empty stage at St. James's Theatre--made him sing "When other lips."