"You shall hear," said Amelia; and Joseph Sedley was actually polite enough to carry the candles to the piano. Osborne hinted that he should like quite as well to sit in the dark; but Miss Sedley, laughing, declined to bear him company any farther, and the two accordingly followed Mr. Joseph. Rebecca sang far better than her friend (though of course Osborne was free to keep his opinion), and exerted herself to the utmost, and, indeed, to the wonder of Amelia, who had never known her perform so well. She sang a French song, which Joseph did not understand in the least, and which George confessed he did not understand, and then a number of those simple ballads which were the fashion forty years ago, and in which British tars, our King, poor Susan, blue-eyed Mary, and the like, were the principal themes. They are not, it is said, very brilliant, in a musical point of view, but contain numberless good-natured, simple appeals to the affections, which people understood better than the milk-and-water lagrime, sospiri, and felicita of the eternal Donizettian music with which we are favoured now-a-days.

"You shall hear," said Amelia; and Joseph Sedley was actually polite enough to carry the candles to the piano. Rebecca sang far better than her friend (though of course Osborne was free to keep his opinion), and exerted herself to the utmost. Amelia had never known her perform so well. She sang a French song, which Joseph did not understand, and then a number of those simple ballads which were the fashion forty years ago, and in which British tars, our King, blue-eyed Mary, and the like, were the principal themes. They are not very brilliant musically, but contain simple appeals to the affections. 