f the prima
donna performed the difficult runs and trills of this most beautiful of
slumber-songs with that precision and delicacy attained by years of
practice and hard training.

The song came to an end, and for a few moments no one spoke, till at
length Elsie Severn, drawing a deep sigh of relief, said in her impulsive
way:

"Why, Mademoiselle Laurentia, I have never heard you sing like that
before. I thought I had heard you at your best in London, but I never
_felt_ your singing so much as to-night."

"I am glad you were pleased, my dear. Would you like another?"

"Yes, above all things. Just wait a moment though; I want to speak to
mamma."

Elsie crossed over to where Lady Severn sat, and whispered to her saying:

"If the gentlemen come out while mademoiselle is singing, don't let any
of them come over to us. She can't bear a crowd round her, and I don't
want her to be disturbed."

"Very well, child; it shall be as you wish. I hope, though, you did not
ask mademoiselle to sing; you must not do that."

"No, no, indeed I did not, mamma. She offered to sing for me."

A curious friendship had sprung up last winter in London between Elsie
Severn and the famous prima donna. They had met one afternoon at a
reception, and been mutually pleased with each other. There was something
about the frank outspoken manner of the young girl which appealed to
Mademoiselle Laurentia, wearied as she was with the conventional
adulation, in reality amounting to so little, of the world in which she
moved.

"Now, mademoiselle," said Elsie, "I am ready. It is so good of you to
sing for me."

"My child, you know I love to give you pleasure," she replied, stroking
the girl's fair hair caressingly. "Listen! I will sing for you a song I
have not sung for years--ah! so many, many years."

She began softly, slowly, a Canadian boat-song, heard often on the
raftsman's barge or habitant's canoe, on the Ottawa or great St.
Lawrence--a national song, with its quaint monotonous melody and simple
pathetic words.

And the voice which rendered so effectively the technical difficulties of
Wagner and Gounod sang this simple air with a pathos and feeling all its
own:

"A la claire fontaine
M'en allant promener,
J'ai trouve l'eau si belle
Que je me suis baigne.
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai.
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai."

"Why, McAllister, whatever is