Everybody, except this hardened personage, was thoroughly uncomfortable.
As for Alfred, his face betrayed a degree of youthful mortification
little short of agony. Mrs. Dodd was profoundly disgusted, but
fortunately for the Hardies, caught sight of his burning cheeks and
compressed lips. "Dr. Sampson," said she, with cold dignity, "you will, I
am sure, oblige me by making no more comments; sincerity is not always
discreet; but it is always respectable: it is one of your own titles to
esteem. I dare say," added she with great sweetness, "our resources are
not so narrow that we need shock anybody's prejudices, and, as it
happens, I was just going to ask Julia to sing: open the piano, love, and
try if you can persuade Miss Hardie to join you in a duet."

At this, Jane and Julia had an earnest conversation at the piano, and
their words, uttered in a low voice, were covered by a contemporaneous
discussion between Sampson and Mrs. Dodd.

_Jane._ No, you must not ask me: I have forsworn 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