which used to swell within me long ago as I sang old church-hymns or new sentimental ballads of love, longing, and despair for my own delight, and quite alone. But it was easy enough even for me then to see that Christina Braun loved music for its own sake, and, like most persons who do thus appreciate and love it, she seemed, to ordinary observers, to care about little else.

Apart from all this, however, I had arranged in my own mind that Christina Braun and the carpenter's son were what we used to call "sweethearts."

After some time I began to observe that Christina ceased to make one in our mild gatherings in Miss Griffin's drawing-room. Indeed the latter lady and I sometimes had tea tête-à-tête-or nearly so, her mother only flitting flightily in and out-and it was dull entertainment for both parties. I would gladly have evaded all such soirées, but that I was ashamed or unwilling to desert poor Miss Griffin, and perhaps did not always know what to do with myself or where else to go. The time for sitting alone in contented gloom, and smoking a pipe long evenings through, had not nearly come as yet.

Sometimes a fearful thought crossed my mind. Could it be possible that Christina imagined Miss Griffin and I were lovers, and liked to be left alone? I tried to shut out this alarming idea. I vowed not to go any more to a tête-à-tête tea; I even attempted awkwardly to pay a mild attention to Christina herself in the hope of thus repelling suspicion. I invited her to come with me to a concert somewherewe had not the rules of Belgravia or even Bloomsbury to govern our social relationships there-but Christina refused in so decided a tone as to make my doubts a dead certainty. I began to feel convinced that I had guessed but too well. Christina must suppose me deeply in love with Miss Griffin-perhaps solemnly engaged to her-to Miss Griffin, whose age was so undeniable, and who carried the stigma of old maid branded on her very skirts and ankles!

One evening we three-we three!-walked home together, as usual, but were unusually dull and silent. Christina declined entering when we arrived at Miss Griffin's door-this time indeed the invitation being very faintly pressed. I was plucking up heart of grace to make my excuses too, when Miss Griffin cut me short by a look of portentous mystery, and the words, "You really must come in, Mr. Banks; I want to speak to you"-words which, however, were not spoken until just after Christina had nodded her head to us and gone on her way.

I followed Miss Griffin upstairs in perhaps something like an agitated condition of mind. I did not quite know whether under certain circumstances strong-minded ladies not young did not think it allowable to interrogate young men touching the nature of their intentions.

Miss Griffin was anything but a strong-minded woman, and just now did not seem to have been thinking about me at all. She burst out with her communication all at once.

"O Mr. Banks, I must send Christina Braun" (pronounced, as I have said before," Brawn") "out of the choir. She must not sing with us any more."

Did I feel relieved to hear that the question was of Christina's rejection, and not of my acceptance? Perhaps so. But I certainly felt much surprised.

"What on earth has she been doing?"

"I am so sorry to hear it; indeed, it's quite put me out; you can't think how much."

"I am afraid she is not a good girl. She sings every night at a singing-house!"

"At a singing-house?"

"Yes; a common low singing-house, Mr. Banks-and I don't see what there is to laugh at-a horrid place where soldiers and sailors and I don't know what-all sorts of low people, in fact-go in and drink and listen to her. It's been all found out; and Mr. Thirlwall (the clergyman) says he can't have a girl in the choir who sings for soldiers and sailors in a common drinking-house. I don't know what to do about it; and I declare it has put me in such a way, you can't think. Perhaps she is not so bad; and then it's all very well for Mr. Thirlwall to talk, but, my goodness! who is to fill her place, with such a voice as she has, and such an ear for music? But I can't keep her unless she promises never to go there any more." "Then you have not spoken to her yet about it?"

"No, not yet. I thought I would ask you something about it first. I thought perhaps you could advise me; you, who are a man of business and know something about the world."

"Well, I am sure I don't see much harm in the whole affair, and I think Mr. Thirlwall is a venerable goose. Miss Braun seems a very quiet, respectable sort of girl" (I thought of the carpenter's love-suit, and felt quite a lordly spirit of patronising pity), "and then what can she do if she's very poor and has no other way of living? The reverend man does not expect her to live on fifteen pounds a-year, paid in rather irregular instalments ?"

"Yes, that is all quite true; and indeed it is just what I said myself to Mr. Thirlwall-only of course I put it more politely—and he says it is true too; for he's a just man, Mr. Banks, though you always seem inclined to laugh at him. But what can he do? He has been preaching from the pulpit time after time against those very singinghouses, and how can he have people looking up from their seats in the church, and perhaps some of them recognising a singer from such a place among the faces in our choir? You know yourself that would never do."

It occurred to me at the moment that perhaps the worshipper who visited the wicked singing-house and was thereby enabled to recognise

one of its performers, would have scarcely a clear right to object to the chorister who sang there. But I saw no use in urging this point to a logical conclusion, and merely suggested that perhaps the place was not so dreadfully bad after all.

"That is what I was just thinking of. I should really like to know something of it. It would never do to give up the poor girl without knowing whether there is any harm in what she is doing. I actually thought of going there myself; I did really."

"O, you can't go, that is quite out of the question; but if you like I'll go, and bring you a faithful report."

"That is what I should like of all things. I can depend upon your judgment. And at all events one ought to know something about the right and wrong of the affair. I believe in law, Mr. Banks, a person is innocent until you can prove her guilty."

"That is considered one of the great principles of British law, Miss Griffin."

"Yes; and I think it's very proper too; and I only wish people would do the same in everything else as well as law."

It was settled, then, that I was to visit and report on the obnoxious singing-place. I had heard of it once or twice before; and of sundry of its predecessors which had all in succession withered and disappeared. Up to this time I had never been out of my native town, and of course had never been in a singing-saloon. Our town was an unspeakably dull spot. At this time it was not even visited by a railway, and it depended for its sole excitement upon the changing of a regiment in the barracks or the occasional visit of a war-frigate to the harbour. Owing to the social and topographical peculiarities I have already mentioned which divided us, like all Gaul in Cæsar's day, into three parts, any sort of amusement which might be devised for the gratification of the floating population in the lower plateau, was not likely to excite either interest or alarm in the higher regions. Our middle class were little given to revelry. Every window in their quarter was duly shuttered and barred by eleven o'clock, and their warmest stimulant was a controversial sermon. But of late there had unquestionably been some stir created by the successful establishment, after many failures, of a famous singing-saloon, modelled after the fashion of metropolitan dissipation. Not a noisy, harmless "free-and-easy," where Snug the joiner and Quince the carpenter might smoke their pipes and be knocked down in turn for their favourite and special song; where Bottom the weaver might deliver his choicest sentiment, and Starveling the tailor might have the formal permission of his wife to remain half-an-hour later on the Saturday night. This was not the sort of thing that now invaded us. It was a place where professional singerswomen too, look you, nearly as bad as dancers, not to say actresses— came and sat on a platform and sang for money. This was then a dreadful innovation. The singing-saloon itself is now well-nigh ob

solete. The rising generation hardly knows what it was like. The music-hall with its plate-glass, its paintings, its private boxes, its concerted music and its champagne, has banished it; and the audacious novelty of my young days is a forgotten, fogeyish old institution now. But this particular place of which I speak was really creating something like a stir among our quiet and respectable burgesses just then. It was established immediately inside the frontier line of our Alsatia; and it is certain that some of our fathers of families had been to visit it, and had talked with quite a dangerous slyness of its attractions, and had made up parties with some of their friends to go and see it again. All this created naturally a considerable fluttering of angry petticoats in domestic circles, and brought severe and direct condemnation from offended pulpits. And so I had heard of the place in question, and had even been making up my mind to visit it before chance sent me there as the special commissioner of Miss Griffin.

The following night I went alone, and had no difficulty in finding the place. Indeed, when you began to descend from the old square, which was the last stronghold of respectability and middle class, down a steep street with steps breaking its precipitate fall, a street that was the main artery of the lower town, you came almost at once upon the obnoxious saloon. It was in a large public-house, occupying a corner where a cross-street ran off, and showing, like Janus, a double front. The place looked cheery enough from the outside. The night was chill and wet; and the bright crimson curtains draping the windows of the upper room where the musical performances were going on, tempted one with visions of ineffable comfort and warmth out of the wintry plash and drizzle of the sodden streets. I went upstairs. There was no payment at the doors, the musical entertainment being supported in the recognised style by indirect taxation levied upon the "orders." I entered the Circean bower. It was but a small and poor imitation of a Strand or Covent Garden Cave of Harmony, but as it had lookingglasses, crimson curtains, velvet cushions, a platform with footlights, and an orchestra, it seemed splendid enough in my confused provincial eyes. I gave an order for something in a rather ineffectual attempt at a careless tone, and dropped into the first available seat. There was rather a numerous audience, including, however, only one or two sailors and no soldiers. Most of the company seemed to me to be smart young artisans, mingled with elderly tradesmen of the unpretentious class; and there were a few young assistants from shops who looked quite swellish in their well-made clothes and gloves. No ladies were there; Miss Griffin would have presented herself in vain. Most of the company were smoking, by which I was innocently surprised to find that the singers were not in the least disconcerted. Of the "audience," a very few were actually listening to the music; the greater number were chatting unconcernedly round their little tables; one or two were asleep. I had, however, listened with the gravest appearance of in

terest to a sentimental and a comic song before I came to myself sufficiently to observe even this much of the aspect of the place.

When I said there were no women present, I meant, of course, among the audience. For when I began to look collectedly around me, I saw that there were girls on the platform, and that among them was Christina Braun. She was dressed in white-poor white muslin only; but she seemed to my eyes to be wearing a magnificent costume. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and were both white and plump, and her fleece of light hair fell around her. She presently came on to sing, and she seemed to be a favourite, for she was welcomed by a burst of applause, and most of the company stopped their talk, while some demanded silence by tapping their pipe-bowls on the table. Christina sang in clear and strong tones some ballad-not at all a Circean strain, but some good moral-purpose song about universal brotherhood and being kind to our neighbour. She sang it with sweetness and force, but with hardly any indication of feeling, certainly with no gleam of emotion perceptible in her eyes. Being, however, vehemently encored, she chose, as seemed to be expected, a totally different kind of song. It was what we used to call a "nigger melody"-a sort of novelty then, with a refrain about courting down in Tennessee, or Alabama, or some other such place.

I scarcely knew what it was all about; but I soon knew that I had never heard such spirit, such archness, such wild wayward humour, such occasional ebullitions of tender thrilling emotion conveyed in song before. No, never! Night after night had I heard this girl sing her devotional hymns in the clearest tones, vacant of any emotion whatever; but now, as she sang some trumpery little serio-comic love-song, her dark-gray eyes gleamed and filled with light; under her shadowy long lashes the eyes sometimes looked so dark and deep as to seem in startling contrast with her bright fair hair; her voice swelled, soared, sank, shaded itself away into an infinite variety of expression; she gave life and speech to the very rattle of her banjo; she made the ballad utter a thousand emotions which were no more in the words she sang than in the instrument she struck, or the smoky, beery crowd, whose glasses jingled with their noisy and honest acclamations. What a soul of feeling, what a capacity-deep, boundless, daring-a capacity for love and triumph, and passion and sorrow-spoke in the tones of that voice and the flash of that eye! For me, I felt partly as I used to feel when sitting alone and singing, only with how much of a difference! With what a change from dreamy, vague, and fluctuating emotions, idly rolling in like the waves on the windless shore, and the warm, tumultuous, passionate rush of the new tide of love and youth and manhood breaking in upon my life at last! I began life, I began love, with the hearing of that song! I daresay it was poor, coarse, untutored singing; untrained, and even in some sense uncouth, it must have been; commonplace it certainly was not. I know that F