The confessors had decided that music was a Christian art, born of the Catholic Church and developed within her.

The two Maries were therefore permitted to study music.
A spinster in spectacles, who taught singing and the piano in a neighboring convent, wearied them with exercises; but when the eldest girl was ten years old, the Comte de Granville insisted on the importance of giving her a master.

Madame de Granville gave all the value of conjugal obedience to this needed concession,--it is part of a devote's character to make a merit of doing her duty.
The master was a Catholic German; one of those men born old, who seem all their lives fifty years of age, even at eighty.

And yet, his brown, sunken, wrinkled face still kept something infantile and artless in its dark creases.

The blue of innocence was in his eyes, and a gay smile of springtide abode upon his lips.