The Argosy — page 163: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

148 Our Amateur Concert. at their music. ‘The second part went better ; the bellowing came in all right, and, being sung with double force, proved a set-off against the previous failure. A hearty burst of applause greeted the four as they filed cheerfully off, followed by little Sutton. Mrs. Smallwood breathed more freely. © ‘‘ Now,” she murmured, ‘‘ things will go better ; the ice is broken.” True, Mrs. Smallwood! the ice is broken! Let us hope none of our performers will fall into the hole! Sutton was the next on the list. His ‘Demon Dance” was a discordant thing enough, even at Smallwood Hall, but zow/ I don’t believe even demons could have danced to it, such a wild scramble did it prove. It contained, moreover, many and many a discord, of which I am certain the learned Abbé who wrote it was quite innocent. ‘There was a pause, too, in one place, that I never remember noticing before. He managed to get through it, however, and went off hastily; and, I saw not on very good terms with himself. Then came “The Fairy’s Home.” Miss Fanny Markham was not to be congratulated on her rendering of this ballad. She opened her lips with the best of intentions, but only a faint, whispering gasp represented the “ Fairy’s” trills, turns, and bravura passages. ‘The audience, who had not attained the pitch of musical refinement referred to above, were evidently relieved when the Fairy finished her somewhat lengthy description of her residence ‘in the woodland green and the dells and vales,” and was conducted out of their sight. “Now,” thought I, “poor Ella must come under fire!” I was really anxious and sympathetic about this poor child, for not only had she a pretty, modest face and manner, but I admired the pluck which made her persevere in her determination to play. They led her up. She was as colourless as her white frock, and had far too many other matters to think about, to dream of bowing to the room. ‘ Poor child !” whispered a lady in the row behind; “it is cruel to make her play. She looks fit to faint !” Ella was taken to the piano. Before she had well sat down she had dashed into her piece. Oh! so fast! Oh! so frenzied! The * loud pedal pressed down by her nervous little foot the whole time. Scramble! Scramble! Dash! Dash! My teeth are set, and I feel my face flush, as I watch her pained, frowning countenance, across which a sharp spasm shoots when some more than usually shocking chord is struck. She has got to the foot of the first page, and things grow worse instead of better. Her face is deathly white. A varia- tion begins. Off goes the right hand with a run. The left tries to follow—the run has brokendown! MHurriedly she attempts it again ; faster this time. It has broken down again—in an earlier stage! She looks wildly at the audience, more wildly at the gentleman who is ‘turning ” for her, dashes both her hands down on aoniite sor aeons