ance.

Presently the Lady Beckwith returned; and they sate and talked awhile,
till there came suddenly into the room a maiden that seemed to Paul like
a rose; she came almost eagerly forward; and Paul knew in his mind that
it was she that had sung; and there passed through his heart a feeling
he had never known before; it was as though it were a string that
thrilled with a kind of delicious pain at being bidden by the touch of a
finger to utter its voice.

"This is my daughter Margaret;" said the Lady Beckwith; "she knows your
fame in song, but she has never had the fortune to hear you sing, and
she loves song herself."

"And does more than love it," said Paul almost tremblingly, feeling the
eyes of the maiden set upon his face; "for I heard but now a lute
touched, and a voice that sang a melody I know not, as few that I know
could have sung it."

The maiden stood smiling at him, and then Paul saw that she carried a
lute in her hand; and she said eagerly, "Will you not sing to us, Sir
Paul?"

"Nay," said the Lady Beckwith smiling, "but this is beyond courtesy! It
is to ask a prince to our house, and beg for the jewels that he wears."

The maiden blushed rosy red, and put the lute by; but Paul stretched out
his hand for it. "I will sing most willingly," he said. "What is my life
for, but to make music for those who would hear?"

He touched a few chords to see that the lute was well tuned; and the
lute obeyed his touch like a living thing; and then Paul sang a song of
spring-time that made the hearts of the pair dance with joy. When he had
finished, he smiled, meeting the smiles of both; and said, "And now we
will have a sad song--for those are ever the sweetest--joy needs not to
be made sweet."

So he sang a sorrowful song that he had made one winter day, when he had
found the body of a little bird that had died of the frost and the hard
silence of the unfriendly earth--a song of sweet things broken and good
times gone by; and before he had finished he had brought the tears to
the eyes of the pair. The Lady Beckwith brushed them aside--but the girl
sate watching him, her hands together, and a kind of worship in her
face, with the bright tears trembling on her cheeks. And Paul thought he
had never seen a fairer thing; but wishing to dry the tears he made a
little merry song, like the song of gnats that dance up and down in the
sun, and love their silly play--so that the two smiled again.

Then they thanked him