Gwendolen, in spite of her wounded egoism, had fullness of nature enough to feel the power of this playing, and it gradually turned her inward sob of mortification into an excitement which lifted her for the moment into a desperate indifference about her own doings, or at least a determination to get a superiority over them by laughing at them as if they belonged to somebody else.

Her eyes had become brighter, her cheeks slightly flushed, and her tongue ready for any mischievous remarks.
"I wish you would sing to us again, Miss Harleth," said young Clintock, the archdeacon's classical son, who had been so fortunate as to take her to dinner, and came up to renew conversation as soon as Herr Klesmer's performance was ended, "That is the style of music for me.

I never can make anything of this tip-top playing.

It is like a jar of leeches, where you can never tell either beginnings or endings.

I could listen to your singing all day." "Yes, we should be glad of something popular now--another song from you would be a relaxation," said Mrs.Arrowpoint, who had also come near with polite intentions.
"That must be because you are in a puerile state of culture, and have no breadth of horizon.