Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/106

 care of all mine. When Monsieur Chaperon was pleased, he used to give me a lesson in backgammon, and he has given me so many lessons, that I am now quite able to win—You shall no longer put yourself out for me. So as not to hinder your pleasures, I have conquered all the difficulties, and I like the noise of backgammon.”

Ursule won. The curé came and surprised the players and rejoiced in her triumph. The next day, Minoret, who had hitherto refused to have his ward taught music, went to Paris, bought a piano, made arrangements at Fontainebleau with a mistress and resigned himself to the annoyance that his ward’s continual practice was bound to cause him. One of the prophecies of the late Jordy the phrenologist was realized; the little girl became an excellent musician. The guardian, proud of his godchild, then engaged an old German called Schmucke, a learned professor of music, to come from Paris once a week, and provided for the expenses of this art, which he had first thought perfectly useless in a household. Unbelievers do not like music, a celestial language developed by Catholicism, which has borrowed the names of the seven notes in one of its hymns; every note is the first syllable of the first seven verses of the hymn to St. John. Although vivid, the impression produced upon the old man by Ursule’s first communion was only temporary. The calmness and content diffused throughout this young mind by works of charity and prayer were also meaningless examples to him. Without any