It was not, now, chagrin alone, nor disappointment, nor anxiety, that the speaking features of Ellis exhibited; indignation had a strong portion of their expression; but Miss Arbe awaited not the remonstrance that they announced: more courteous, while more embarrassed, she took Ellis by the hand, and caressingly said, 'Lady Aurora knows--for I have written to her ladyship myself,--that every smiling is laid out for your benefit;--only we must have a beginning, you know,--so you won't distress poor Lady Aurora, by seeming discontented, after all that she has done for you? It would be cruel, you know, to distress her.' With all its selfishness, Ellis felt the truth of this observation with respect to Lady Aurora, as forcibly as its injustice with regard to herself. She sighed from helplessness how to seek any redress; and Miss Arbe, still fawningly holding her hand, added, 'But you don't think to steal away without giving us another air?--Miss Sycamore!--Sir Marmaduke!--Sir Lyell! pray help me to persuade Miss Ellis to favour us with one more air.' Disgusted and fatigued, Ellis would silently have retired; but the signal being given by Miss Arbe, all that remained of the assembly professed themselves to be dying for another piece; and Ellis, pressed to comply with an eagerness that turned solicitation into persecution, was led, once more, by Sir Marmaduke, to the orchestra. Here, her melancholy and distressed feelings again marred her performance; she scarcely knew what she played, nor how she sung; her execution lost its brilliancy, and her expression its refined excellence: but Miss Arbe, conscious of the cause, and alarmed lest any appeal to Lady Aurora should sully her own character of patroness, hoped, by the seductive bribery of flattery, to stifle complaint. She was the first, therefore, to applaud; and her example animated all around, except the supercilious Miss Sycamore, and the jealous Miss Brinville, whom envy rendered inveterate. 'How exquisite!'--'How sweet!'--'How incomparable!'--'What taste!'--'What sounds!'--'What expression!'--now accompanied almost every bar of the wavering, incorrect performance; though not even an encouraging buzz of approbation, had cheered the exertions of the same performer during the elegant and nearly finished piece, by which it had been preceded. The public at large is generally just, because too enormous to be individually canvassed; but private circles are almost universally biassed by partial or prejudiced influence. Miss Arbe chose now to conclude, that every objection was obviated; and Ellis strove vainly to obtain a moment's further attention, from the frivolous flutter, and fancied perplexities, of busy self-consequence. The party broke up: the company dispersed; and the poor, unconsidered, unaided _protegee_, dejectedly left the house, at the same moment that it was quitted triumphantly, by her vain, superficial, unprotecting patroness. CHAPTER XXXIII