Chapter 2

"I daresay it will be all right; he seems quiet now," said the poor
lady of the "parlours" a few days later, in reference to their
litigious neighbour and the precarious piano. The two lodgers had
grown regularly acquainted, and the piano had had much to do with it.
Just as this instrument served, with the gentleman at No. 4, as a
theme for discussion, so between Peter Baron and the lady of the
parlours it had become a basis of peculiar agreement, a topic, at any
rate, of conversation frequently renewed. Mrs. Ryves was so
prepossessing that Peter was sure that even if they had not had the
piano he would have found something else to thresh out with her.
Fortunately however they did have it, and he, at least, made the most
of it, knowing more now about his new friend, who when, widowed and
fatigued, she held her beautiful child in her arms, looked dimly like
a modern Madonna. Mrs. Bundy, as a letter of furnished lodgings, was
characterised in general by a familiar domestic severity in respect
to picturesque young women, but she had the highest confidence in
Mrs. Ryves. She was luminous about her being a lady, and a lady who
could bring Mrs. Bundy back to a gratified recognition of one of
those manifestations of mind for which she had an independent esteem.
She was professional, but Jersey Villas could be proud of a
profession that didn't happen to be the wrong one--they had seen
something of that. Mrs. Ryves had a hundred a year (Baron wondered
how Mrs. Bundy knew this; he thought it unlikely Mrs. Ryves had told
her), and for the rest she depended on her lovely music. Baron
judged that her music, even though lovely, was a frail dependence; it
would hardly help to fill a concert-room, and he asked himself at
first whether she played country-dances at children's parties or gave
lessons to young ladies who studied above their station.

Very soon, indeed, he was sufficiently enlightened; it all went fast,
for the little boy had been almost as great a help as the piano.
Sidney haunted the doorstep of No. 3 he was eminently sociable, and
had established independent relations with Peter, a frequent feature
of which was an adventurous visit, upstairs, to picture books
criticised for not being ALL geegees and walking sticks happily more
conformable. The young man's window, too, looked out on their
acquaintance; through a starched muslin curtain it kept his neighbour
before him, made him almost more aware of her comings and goings than
he felt he had a right to be. He was capable of a shyness of
curiosity about her and of dumb little delicacies of consideration.
She did give a few lessons; they were essentially local, and he ended
by knowing more or less what she went out for and what she came in