He had
observed with regret that Ernest had ere now shown rather a
hankering after low company, and he might make acquaintance with those
who would corrupt his innocence. Christina shuddered at this, but when
they had aired their scruples sufficiently they felt (and when
people begin to "feel," they are invariably going to take what they
believe to be the more worldly course) that to oppose Alethea's
proposal would be injuring their son's prospects more than was
right, so they consented, but not too graciously.
After a time, however, Christina got used to the idea, and then
considerations occurred to her which made her throw herself into it
with characteristic ardour. If Miss Pontifex had been a railway
stock she might have been said to have been buoyant in the Battersby
market for some few days; buoyant for long together she could never
be, still for a time there really was an upward movement.
Christina's mind wandered to the organ itself; she seemed to have made
it with her own hands; there would be no other in England to compare
with it for combined sweetness and power. She already heard the famous
Dr. Walmisley of Cambridge mistaking it for a Father Smith.
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