Page:The Wanderer (1814 Volume 2).pdf/291

 whose souls are least susceptible either to intellectual or mental harmony.

Foremost in the throng of listeners came Lady Barbara Frankland, attended by Selina; unopposed either by Lady Kendover or Mrs. Maple; those ladies not being less desirous that their nieces should reap every advantage from Ellis, than that Ellis should reap none in return.

But Ellis was seized with a faint panic that disordered her whole frame; terrour took from her fingers their elasticity, and robbed her mind and fancy of those powers, which, when free from alarm, gave grace and meaning to her performance: and, what to herself she had played with a taste and an expression, that the first masters would most have admired, because best have understood, had now neither mark, spirit, nor correctness while her voice was almost too low to be heard, and quite too feeble and tremulous to give pleasure.

The assembly at large was now divided