One week, and another week passed by, and every evening was as charming as the first of the return of Ernest Linwood.

In that fortnight were compressed the social and intellectual joys of a lifetime.

Music, reading, and conversation filled the measure of the evening hours.

Such music, such reading, and such conversation as I never heard before.

I had been accustomed to read aloud a great deal to my own dear mother, to Mrs.Linwood, and to my young pupils also, and I had reason to think I could read remarkably well; but I could not read like Ernest,--I never heard any one that could.