A Nest of Linnets

"This will never do, Betsy," said Mr. Linley, shaking his head. "Sir Joshua calls you Saint Cecilia, but 'twere a misnomer if you do not sing the phrase better than you have just sung it. 'She drew an angel down': let that be in your mind, my dear. There is no celestial being that would move a pinion to help a maiden who implored its aid in so half-hearted a way. Let us try again. One, two, three--"

"'Angels, ever bright and fair,'"

sang Miss Linley.

Her father sprang from the harpsichord.

"Gracious powers, madam! the angels are not in the next room-they are not even in Pierrepont Street, take my word for it; they are in heaven, and heaven, let me tell you, is a very long way from Bath!" he cried. "Give forth the 'Angels' as if you meant to storm the ears of heaven with your cry. Think of it, girl-think that you are lost, eternally lost, unless you can obtain help that is not of earth. Stun their ears, madam, with the suddenness of your imploration, and let the voice come from your heart. Betsy, that smile is not in the music. If Maestro Handel had meant a smile to illuminate the part, take my word for it he would have signified it by a bar of demi-semi-quavers, followed by semi-quavers and quavers. Good heavens, madam! do you hope to improve upon Handel?"

"Ah, father, do not ask too much of me to-night; I am tired-anxious. Why, only last week a highwayman--"

Miss Linley glanced, eagerly listening, toward the window, as if she fully expected to see the mask of a highwayman peering between the blinds.

"Betsy, I am ashamed of you!" said her father. "What stuff is this? Is there any highwayman fool enough to collect fiddles? Do you fancy that a boy with a fiddle tucked under his arm is in any peril of a bullet?"

"But they may affright the child."

"Child? Child? Who is the child? What! Do you think that because you have not seen your brother since he was fourteen, the four years that have passed can have made no impression on him?"

"I suppose he will have grown."

"You may be sure that he will be able to defend himself without drawing either his sword or his fiddle. To your singing, Betsy. Go back to the recitative."

"It would be a terrible thing to find that he had outgrown his affection for us. I have heard that in Italy--"

"Still harping on my daughter's brother! Come, Miss Linnet, you shall have your chance. You shall fancy that your prayer is uttered on behalf of your brother.

'Angels, ever bright and fair,

Take, oh, take him to your care.'

Now shall the angels hear for certain. Come, child; one, two--"

"'Angels--'"

sang Miss Linley.

"Brava!" cried her father sotto voce, as the sound thrilled through the room and there was a suggestion of an answering vibration from the voice of the harpsichord.

"'Angels, ever bright and fair,

Take, oh, take me--'"

The harpsichord jingled alone. The girl's voice failed. She threw herself into a chair, and, covering her face with her hands, burst into a passion of sobbing.

"Oh, if he does not arrive after all-if some accident has happened-if-if--"

The apprehensions which she was too much overcome to name were emphasised in the glance that she cast at her father. Her eyes, the most marvellous wells of deep tenderness that ever woman possessed, at all times suggested a certain pathetic emotion of fear, causing every man who looked into their depths to seek to be her protector from the danger they seemed to foresee; but at this moment they appeared to look straight into the face of disaster.

"If I could translate that expression of your face into music, I should be the greatest musician alive," said her father.

In a second the girl was on her feet, uttering a little sound of contempt. She began pacing the floor excitedly, her long white muslin dress flowing from her high waist in waves.

"Ah, always this art-always this art!" she cried. "Always the imitation-always the pitiful attempt to arouse an artificial emotion in others, and never to have an hour of true emotion oneself, never an hour of real life, never an hour apart from the artifices of Art,-that is the life which you would have me to lead. I hate it! I hate it! Oh, better a day-an hour-a minute of true tenderness than a long lifetime spent in shamming emotion!"

"Shamming? Shamming? Oh, my Elizabeth!" said the musician in a voice full of reproach.

"Shamming! Shamming!" she cried. "I think that there is no greater sham than music. The art of singing is the art of shamming. I try to awaken pity in the breast of my hearers by pretending that I am at the point of death and anxious for the angels to carry me off, yet all the time I care nothing for the angels, but a good deal for my brother Tom, who is coming home to-night. Oh, father, father, do not try to teach me any more of this tricking of people into tears by the sound of my voice. Dear father, let me have this one evening to myself-to live in my own world-my own world of true tears, of true feeling, of true joy. Let me live until to-morrow the real life of the people about us, who have not been cursed by Heaven with expressive voices and a knowledge of the trick of drawing tears by a combination of notes."

She had flung herself down at his knees and was pressing one of his hands to her face, kissing it.

"Betsy, you are not yourself this evening," he said in a voice that was faltering on the threshold of a sob.

"Nay, nay; 'tis just this evening that I am myself," she cried. "Let me continue to be myself just for one evening, dear father. Let me-- Ah!"

She had given a little start, then there was a breathless pause, then, with a little cry of delight, she sprang to her feet and rushed to the window.

Her father had rushed to the second window with just such another cry.

Hearing it she turned to him in amazement, with the edge of the blind that she was in the act of raising still in her hand. She gave a laugh, pointing a finger of her other hand at him, while she cried:

"Ah, you are a father after all!"

His head was within the blind, and he was shutting off with his hands the light of the candles of the room while he peered into the darkness, so that the reproach passed unheeded.

Before she had put her face to the pane her father had dropped the blind that he was holding back.

"Good lud! how the lad has grown!" he said in an astonished whisper.

"Tom! 'tis Tom himself!" cried Betsy, turning from the window and making for the door.

There was a sound of merry voices and many shouts of children's welcome downstairs-a stamping of feet on the stairs, a stream of questions in various tones of voice, a quiet answer or two, a children's quarrel in the passage as a boy tried to run in front of a girl. Betsy flung wide the door, crying:

"Tom, brother Tom!"

In another second he was in her arms, kissing her face and being kissed by her without the exchange of a word.

The other members of the family of Linley stood by, the father slightly nervous, fingering an invisible harpsichord, the brothers and sisters callous only when they were not nudging one another lest any detail of the pathetic scene of the meeting of the eldest brother and sister should pass unnoticed.

"Hasn't he grown!" remarked Mrs. Linley. Some of the flour of the pie which she had been making was on the front of her dress and one of the sleeves. She had transferred a speck or two to her son's travelling-cloak.

"He hasn't shaken hands with father yet," said Master Oziah with the frankness of observant childhood.

"He doesn't mind; he's too big for father to thwack!" whispered Master Willie.

"Oh, Tom!-but it was my fault-all my fault!" cried Betsy, releasing her brother, and passing him on to their father almost with the air of introducing the two.

For a moment the musician felt the aloofness of the artist.

"Father-caro padre!" said the boy, who had just returned from Italy.

"Son Tom," said the father, giving his cheek to be kissed, while he pressed the hand that the boy held out to him.

"What has he brought us, I wonder?" remarked little Oziah to Willie in a moderately low tone.

"Nothing that's useful, I hope," said Willie. "People have no business bringing home useful presents."

"I can't believe that these big girls are the little sisters I left at home when I set out on my travels," said Tom, when he had thrown off his travelling-cloak. "Polly? Oh, she is very pretty-yes, in her own way; and I daresay she is as pert as ever."

"And she needs all her pertness to keep her head above water in such a household!" said Polly.

"But Betsy-oh, what an English sound Betsy has-far sweeter than Bettina, I'll swear! Oh, Bacco, Betsy is our beauty," said Tom, looking critically at the blushing girl before him.

"Psha! everybody knows that," said Polly. "We don't stand in need of a traveller's opinion on so plain a matter."

"You, Tom, are as like Betsy now as two-two roses that have grown on the same stem," said Mr. Linley.

"Then I cannot without boasting say another word about her beauty," laughed Tom, making a very Italian bow to the sister whom he loved.

He undoubtedly bore a striking resemblance to her. His complexion was just as exquisitely transparent as hers, and his eyes had the same expression, the same timorous look, that suggested the eyes of a beautiful startled animal-the most wonderful eyes that had ever been painted by Gainsborough.

"And her voice-has it also improved?" asked Tom, turning to their father with the air of an impresario making an inquiry of a trusted critic.

"Look at her face, boy; look in her eyes, and then you will know what I mean when I say that her voice is no more than the expression of her face made audible," said Mr. Linley. "Look well at her this evening, my son; you will appreciate her beauty now that it is still fresh in your eyes; to-morrow you will have begun to get used to it. Brothers cease to be impressed with the beauty of their sisters almost as quickly as husbands do with the beauty of their wives."

"Tom is so like Betsy, there is no danger of his forgetting that she is beautiful," said Polly.

Tom gave a little frown, then a little laugh. His laugh was just as sweet as Betsy's: both suggested a campanile.

"You have made her a great singer, I hear, sir," he remarked, when he had kissed her again-this time on the hand.

"She was born a great singer: I have only made her a great artist," said the father. Then noticing her frown, he cried in quite another tone: "But how is't with you, my fine fellow? Have you proved yourself to be a genius or only an artist?"

"Ah, you remember how I replied to the bishop who had heard Betsy sing, and thought it only civil to inquire if I was musical also: 'Yes, sir, we are all geniuses'?"

"It has become the household jest," said Polly. "But my own belief is, that mother is the only genius among us; you shall taste one of her pies before you are an hour older. If you say that you tasted a better one in all Italy, you will prove yourself no judge of cookery."

"I should eat that pie even if it should contain not four-and-twenty blackbirds, but as many nightingales-or linnets. Ah, you remember, Betsy, how the name 'Miss Linnet' remained with you? Who was it that first called you Miss Linnet?"

"That were a question for the Society of Antiquaries," said Betsy, "and the bird we are all thinking of is a pie. Hurry to your room, Tom, or I vow there will not be left so much as a clove for you. You knew Polly's appetite; well, it has improved to the extent of an octave and a half since."

"Corpo di Bacco! I have no inclination to play second fiddle to an appetite of such compass!" cried Tom, hurrying from the room.

"I sing as Miss Cormorant in the bills when Betsy appears as Miss Linnet," cried Polly from the lobby.

And then they all talked of Tom-all except the mother, who had gone downstairs to the kitchen. How Tom had grown! How good it was of him to remember through all the stress of foreign travel and foreign study, the household characteristics of the Linleys, of 5, Pierrepont Street, Bath! It seemed so strange-just as strange as if a stranger had come into the house showing himself acquainted with the old family jests. And he had not even forgotten that Polly was pert! Polly held her head high at the thought that he had not forgotten her pertness. How noble it was of him! And yet he must have had a great many more important details to keep in his head.

Maria was thinking of the possibility of a brooch being among the luggage of her newly returned brother-a real Italian brooch, with perhaps a genuine yellow topaz in it, or perhaps a fascinating design done in mosaic, or a shell cameo of the head of Diana, or some other foreign goddess. Little Maria had been thinking of this brooch for some weeks. At times she could scarcely hope that so great a treasure should ever escape the notice of those lines of banditti, who, according to reports that had reached her, contested the passage of any article of value across the Italian frontier. But even admitting the possibility of its safe arrival in England, would not the news of its coming be passed round from highwayman to highwayman until the last chance of its reaching her had fled? Then there were the perils of innkeepers, of inquisitive postboys, of dishonest porters. She had heard of them all, and thus was for weeks in a condition of nervousness quite unusual to her. And now the dreadful thought came to her: "Perhaps he has brought the brooch to Polly, and only a book to me!"

She looked with eager, searching eyes at Polly, and felt sure that she detected on her sister's face the expression of a girl who has secret intelligence that a brooch is about to be presented to her. She hoped that she would be strong enough to resist the temptation to pinch Polly. She had no confidence in Polly's self-control, however, should the book fall to Polly's lot.

And thus they all trooped downstairs to supper, and the moment they had seated themselves there arose one septet of joyful exclamations, for between the knife and fork of every one lay a neat parcel wrapped up in cotton-wool and silken paper.

And Maria's was a brooch-a beautiful mosaic design of the Pillar of Trajan.

And nobody had received anything that could possibly be called useful, so every one was happy.

And when Tom entered, after a dramatic interval, he was assailed on all sides by exclamations of gratitude. But he put his fingers in his ears for a few moments, and only removed them to be able more freely to repel the attacks made upon him by the girls. He could only receive one kiss at a time, though he did make a masterful attempt to take the two elders as a concerto allegro movement; the others he treated as a scherzo. He had the lordly air of the patron who flings his guineas about: the Italian jewellery had made a deep inroad upon a lira; but he was a generous man, and he loved his family. But his mother, being a thrifty soul-Mr. Foote thought her miserly-shook her head. She felt that he had been too lavish, not knowing anything about Italian jewellery.

* * *