It was decided to place Mary Sedley under the special
charge of Mr. Grandison, and he accordingly went twice a week to the
house to give her lessons in singing, and when there was a special
Anthem to be sung his visits were much more frequent. Then the
Sedleys gave grand musical parties to which Mr. Grandison was of
course, invited, playing Miss Sedley's accompaniment on the
pianoforte, while she entranced the assembled company with her
singing; in fact, no gathering of the Sedley family was complete
without the presence of the handsome and accomplished Mr. Grandison.
All this, in its way, was harmless enough, but Mary Sedley was a
blooming girl of seventeen, and Grandison, as I have said was quite
a young man, and from the frequent walking home with her alone from
services and rehearsals, and other meetings in society, there arose
an intimacy which, though unnoticed by Mary's parents, and possibly
not by the young people themselves, could not be productive of
anything in the long run but sorrow and remorse.
One Saturday night when Mary came home rather later than usual, her
father (who, though fond of her, was an austere man) questioned her
gruffly as to the cause of her delay, when she replied:--"Oh! papa,
I am to sing 'As Pants the Hart' to-morrow, and Mr.
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