His aunt
judged him charitably, as she was sure to do; she knew very well where
the priggishness came from, and seeing that the string of his tongue
had been loosened sufficiently gave him no more sherry.
It was after dinner, however, that he completed the conquest of
his aunt. She then discovered that, like herself, he was
passionately fond of music, and that, too, of the highest class. He
knew, and hummed or whistled to her all sorts of pieces out of the
works of the great masters, which a boy of his age could hardly be
expected to know, and it was evident that this was purely instinctive,
inasmuch as music received no kind of encouragement at Roughborough.
There was no boy in the school as fond of music as he was. He picked
up his knowledge, he said, from the organist of St. Michael's
Church, who used to practise sometimes on a week-day afternoon. Ernest
had heard the organ booming away as he was passing outside the
church and had sneaked inside and up into the organ loft. In the
course of time the organist became accustomed to him as a familiar
visitant, and the pair became friends.
It was this which decided Alethea that the boy was worth taking
pains with.
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