's mind wandered to the organ itself; she seemed to
have made it with her own hands; there would be no other in England to compare
with it for combined sweetness and power. She already heard the famous Dr.
Walmisley of Cambridge mistaking it for a Father Smith. It would come no doubt,
in reality, to Battersby Church, which wanted an organ - for it must be all
nonsense about Alethæa's wishing to keep it, and Ernest would not have a house
of his own for ever so many years, and they could never have it at the rectory.
Oh no! Battersby Church was the only proper place for it.
    Of course they would have a grand opening, and the bishop would come down,
and perhaps young Figgins might be on a visit to them - she must ask Ernest if
Figgins had yet left Roughborough - he might even persuade his grandfather Lord
Lonsford to be present. Lord Lonsford and the bishop and everyone else would
then compliment her, and Dr. Wesley or Dr. Walmisley who should preside (it did
not much matter which) would say to her, »My dear Mrs. Pontifex, I never yet
played upon so remarkable an instrument.« Then she would give him one of her
very sweetest smiles and say she feared he was flattering her, on which he would
rejoin with some pleasant little trifle about remarkable men (the remarkable man
being for the moment Ernest) having invariably had remarkable women for their
mothers - and so on and so on. The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself
is that one can lay it on so thick, and exactly in the right places.
    Theobald wrote Ernest a short and surly letter á propos of his aunt's
intentions in this matter.
    »I will not commit myself,« he said, »to an opinion whether anything will
come of it; this will depend entirely upon your own exertions; you have had
singular advantages hitherto and your kind aunt is showing every desire to
befriend you, but you must give greater proof of stability and steadiness of
character than you have given yet if this organ matter is not to prove in the
end to be only one disappointment the more.
    I must insist on two things: firstly, that this new iron in the fire does
not distract your attention from your Latin and Greek« (»They aren't mine,«
thought Ernest, »and never have been«) »and secondly, that you bring no smell of
glue or shavings into the house here, if you make any part of the organ during
your holidays.«
