"With alarm?" queried Lucio, laughing--"Or with disgust?" "Nonsense! you know what I mean very well. I have always had a contempt for the piano as an instrument, but by Jove! I never heard such music as yours even in a full orchestra. It is extraordinary!--it is positively magnificent! Where in the world did you study?" "In Nature's conservatoire;"--replied Rimânez lazily. "My first 'maestro' was an amiable nightingale. He, singing on a branch of fir when the moon was full, explained with liquid-noted patience, how to construct and produce a pure roulade, cadenza and trill,--and when I had learned thus far, he showed me all the most elaborate methods of applying rhythmic tune to the upward and downward rush of the wind, thus supplying me with perfect counterpoint. Chords I learned from old Neptune, who was good enough to toss a few of his largest billows to the shore for my special benefit. He nearly deafened me with his instructions, being somewhat excitable and loud-voiced,--but on finding me an apt pupil, he drew back his waves to himself with so much delicacy among the pebbles and sand, that at once I mastered the secret of playing _arpeggi_. Once too I had a finishing lesson from a Dream,--a mystic thing with wild hair and wings--it sang one word in my ears, and the word was unpronounceable in mortal speech,--but after many efforts I discovered it lurking in the scale of sound. The best part of it all was, that my instructors asked no fees!" "I think you are a poet as well as a musician,"--said Lady Sibyl. "A poet! Spare me!--my dear young lady, why are you so cruel as to load me with so vile an imputation! Better be a murderer than a poet,--one is treated with much more respect and courteous consideration,--by the press at anyrate. The murderer's breakfast-menu will be given due place in many of the most estimable journals,--but the poet's lack of both breakfast and dinner will be deemed his fitting reward. Call me a live-stock producer, a horse-breeder, a timber-merchant,--anything but a poet! Why even Tennyson became an amateur milkman to somewhat conceal and excuse the shame and degradation of writing verse!" We all laughed. "Well, you must admit," said Lord Elton, "that we've had rather too much of poets lately. It's no wonder we're sick of them, and that poetry has fallen into disrepute. Poets are such a quarrelsome lot too--effeminate, puling, unmanly humbugs!"