Here, as in most rural towns in England, music was much cultivated, both among the higher and middle classes.

There were amateur concerts, and glee-clubs, and subscriptions for sacred music; and once every five years there was the great C------ Festival.

In this town Mrs.Leslie established Alice: she placed her under the roof of a _ci-devant_ music-master, who, having retired from his profession, was no longer jealous of rivals, but who, by handsome terms, was induced to complete the education of Alice.

It was an eligible and comfortable abode, and the music-master and his wife were a good-natured easy old couple.
Three months of resolute and unceasing perseverance, combined with the singular ductility and native gifts of Alice, sufficed to render her the most promising pupil the good musician had ever accomplished; and in three months more, introduced by Mrs.Leslie to many of the families in the place, Alice was established in a home of her own; and, what with regular lessons, and occasional assistance at musical parties, she was fairly earning what her tutor reasonably pronounced to be "a very genteel independence." Now, in these arrangements (for we must here go back a little), there had been one gigantic difficulty of conscience in one party, of feeling in another, to surmount.

Mrs.Leslie saw at once that unless Alice's misfortune was concealed, all the virtues and all the talents in the world could not enable her to retrace the one false step.