Winthrop to a few false notes now and then. The composer has more power
to give me pain than the performers, I believe."
"I should say, then, that your comprehension of music was more subtle
than his."
"I do not pretend to compare myself with Mr. Winthrop in any way. It
would be like the minnow claiming fellowship with the leviathan."
Mr. Winthrop suggested very politely:--
"Humility is becoming until it grows abject."
"Your guardian is an incorrigible bachelor. Ladies do not get the
slightest mercy from him," Mr. Bovyer remarked.
"I have ceased to look for any," I said, with an evenness of voice that
surprised me.
"I am glad to find myself in such good company," Mr. Winthrop said, with
a graceful bend of the head, which included each of his guests in the
list of single blessed ones.
"Are you all going to be old bachelors?" I asked, forgetting myself in
the surprise of the moment.
"I am not aware that we are all irrevocably committed to that terrible
fate," Mr. Bovyer said, as he united in the general smile at my expense.
"It might be more terrible for some of your wives than if you remained
single. I think some persons are fore-ordained to live single." I looked
steadily in the fire lest my eyes might betray too much.
"Do you imagine those blighted lives are confined solely to one sex?" Mr.
Winthrop blandly inquired.
"Oh, no; nature does not confine her oddities to one sex; but a woman can
better conceal the lack of a human heart and sympathies.
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