" .
. . But, anyway, he would like making an organ, and this could do him no
harm, so the sooner he began the better.
Alethea thought it would save trouble in the end if she told her brother
and sister-in-law of this scheme. "I do not suppose," she wrote, "that
Dr Skinner will approve very cordially of my attempt to introduce organ-
building into the _curriculum_ of Roughborough, but I will see what I can
do with him, for I have set my heart on owning an organ built by Ernest's
own hands, which he may play on as much as he likes while it remains in
my house and which I will lend him permanently as soon as he gets one of
his own, but which is to be my property for the present, inasmuch as I
mean to pay for it." This was put in to make it plain to Theobald and
Christina that they should not be out of pocket in the matter.
If Alethea had been as poor as the Misses Allaby, the reader may guess
what Ernest's papa and mamma would have said to this proposal; but then,
if she had been as poor as they, she would never have made it. They did
not like Ernest's getting more and more into his aunt's good books, still
it was perhaps better that he should do so than that she should be driven
back upon the John Pontifexes.
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