Jane. No, you must not
ask me; I have foresworn
these vanities. I have not
opened my piano this two
years.

Julia. Oh, what a pity;
music is so beautiful; and
surely we can choose our
songs, as easily as our
words; ah, how much more
easily.

Jane. Oh, I don't go so far
as to call music wicked: but
music in society is such a
snare. At least I found it
so; my playing was highly
praised; and that stirred up
vanity: and so did my singing,
with which I had even
more reason to be satisfied.
Snares! snares!

Julia. Goodness me! I
don't find them so. Now you
mention it, gentlemen do
praise one, but, dear me.
they praise every lady, even
when we have been singing
every other note out of
tune. The little unmeaning
compliments of society, can
they catch anything so great
as a soul?

Jane. I pray daily not to
be led into temptation, and
shall I go into it of my own
accord?

Julia. Not if you find it a
temptation. At that rate I
ought to decline.

Jane. That doesn't follow.
My conscience is not a law
to yours. Besides, your
mamma said "sing;" and
a parent is not to be
disobeyed upon a doubt. If
papa were to insist on my
going to a ball even, or reading
a novel, I think I should
obey; and lay the whole
case before Him.

Mrs. Dodd (from a distance).
Come, my dears,
Doctor Sampson is getting
so impatient for your song.

Sampson. Hum! for all
that, young ladies' singing
is a poor substitute for
cards, and even for conversation.

Mrs Dodd. That depends
upon the singer, I
presume.

Sampson. Mai—dear—
madam, they all sing alike;
just as they all write alike.
I can hardly tell one fashionable
tune from another;
and nobody can tell one
word from another, when
they cut out all the consonants.
N' listen me. This
is what I heard sung by a
lady last night:

Ee un Da'ei u aa an oo.
By oo eeeeyee aa
Vaullee, Vaullee, Vaullee,
Vaullee,
Vaullee om is igh eeaa
An ellin in is ud.

Mrs Dodd. That sounds
like gibberish.

Sampson. It is gibberish;
but it's Drydenish in
articulating mouths. It is:

He sung Darius great and
good
By too severe a fate
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And wiltering in his blood.

Mrs Dodd. I think you
exaggerate. I will answer
for Julia that she shall
speak as distinctly to music
as you do in conversation.

Sampson. (All unconscious
of the tap.) Time will show,
madam. At prisent they
seem to be in no hurry to
spatter us with their word-jelly.
Does some spark of
pity linger in their marble
bosms? or do they prefer
inaudble chit-chat t' inarticlate
mewin?

Julia, thus pressed, sang one of those songs
that come and go every season. She spoke the
words clearly, and with such variety and intelligence,
that Sampson recanted, and broke in upon
the—"very pretty"—"how sweet"—and "who
is it by?" of the others, by shouting, "very weak
trash very cleanly sung. Now give us something
worth the wear and tear of your orgins.
Immortal vairse widded t' immortal sounds; that is
what I understand b' a song."

Alfred whispered, "No, no, dearest, sing
something suitable to you and me."

"Out of the question. Then go further away,
dear; I shall have more courage."

He obeyed, and she turned over two or three
music-books; and finally sang from memory. She
cultivated musical memory, having observed the
contempt with which men of sense visit the sorry
pretenders to music, who are tuneless and songless
among the nightingales, and anywhere else away
from their books. How will they manage to sing
in heaven? Answer me that!

The song Julia Dodd sang on this happy occasion,
to meet the humble but heterogeneous views
of Messrs. Sampson and Hardie, was a simple
eloquent Irish song, called Aileen aroon. Whose
history, by-the-by, was a curious one. Early in this
century it occurred to somebody to hymn a son of
George the Third for his double merit in having
been born, and going to a ball. People, who thus
apply the fine arts in modern days, are seldom
artists; accordingly, this parasite could not
invent a melody; so he coolly stole Aileen aroon,
soiled it by inserting sordid and incongruous
jerks into the refrain, and called the stolen and
adulterated article Robin Adair. An artisan of
the same kidney was soon found to write words
down to the degraded ditty: and, so strong is
Flunkeyism, and so weak is Criticism, in these
islands, that the polluted tune actually
superseded the clean melody, and this sort of thing—

Who was in uniform at the ball?
Silly Billy.
smothered the immortal lines.

But Mrs. Dodd's severe taste in music rejected
those ignoble jerks, and her enthusiastic daughter
having the option to hymn immortal Constancy
or mortal Fat, decided thus:

When like the early rose,
Aileen aroon,
Beauty in childhood glows,
Aileen aroon,
When like a diadem,
Buds flush around the stem,
Which is the fairest gem?
Aileen aroon.

Is it the laughing eye?
Aileen aroon,
Is it the timid sigh?
Aileen aroon,
Is it the tender tone?
Soft as the stringed harp's moan?
No; it is Truth alone,
Aileen aroon.

I know a valley fair,
Aileen aroon,
I know a cottage there,
Aileen aroon.
Far in that valley's shade,
I know a gentle maid,
Flower of the hazel glade,
Aileen aroon.

Who in the song so sweet?
Aileen aroon,
Who in the dance so fleet?
Aileen aroon.
Dear are her charms to me,
Dearer her laughter free,
Dearest her constancy,
Aileen aroon.

Youth with time must decay,
Aileen aroon,
Beauty must fade away,
Aileen aroon.
Castles are sacked in war,
Chieftans are scattered far,
Truth is a fixed star,
Aileen aroon.

The way the earnest singer sang these lines is
beyond the conception of ordinary singers, public
or private. Here one of nature's orators spoke
poetry to music with an eloquence as fervid and
delicate as ever rung in the Forum.