It was a picture, with its face turned to the wall, and some large letters on the back of the canvas.
This excited Grace's curiosity directly, and, whenever she could, without being observed, she peeped, and tried to read the inscription; but, what with Mr.Raby's head, and a monster candle that stood before it, she could not decipher it unobserved.

She was inclined to ask Mr.
Raby; but she was very quick, and, observing that the other portraits were of his family, she suspected at once that the original of this picture had offended her host, and that it would be in bad taste, and might be offensive, to question him.

Still the subject took possession of her.
At about eight o'clock a servant announced candles in the drawing-room.
Upon this Mr.Raby rose, and, without giving her any option on the matter, handed her to the door with obsolete deference.
In the drawing-room she found a harpsichord, a spinet, and a piano, all tuned expressly for her.

This amused her, as she had never seen either of the two older instruments in her life.

She played on them all three.
Mr.Raby had the doors thrown open to hear her.
She played some pretty little things from Mendelssohn, Spohr, and Schubert.
The gentlemen smoked and praised.
Then she found an old music-book, and played Hamlet's overture to Otho, and the minuet.
The gentlemen left off praising directly, and came silently into the room to hear the immortal melodist.