hesitated. "Nor anywhere in
Princess Anne. You are the first lady here to speak to me."

His words, but not his tone, intimated an inferiority or a slight. The
voice was a little stiff, appearing to be at want for some corresponding
inflection, like a man who had learned a language without having had the
use of it.

"Will you sit, Mr. Milburn? You owe this visit so long that you will not
be in haste to-day. I hope you have not felt that we were inhospitable.
But little towns often encourage narrow circles, and make people more
selfish than they intend."

"You could never be selfish, miss," said Milburn, without any of the
suavity of a compliment, still carrying that wild, regarding gaze, like
the eyes of a startled ox.

Vesta faintly colored at the liberty he took. It was slightly
embarrassing to her, too, to meet that uninterpretable look of inquiry
and homage; but she felt her necessity as well as her good-breeding, and
made allowance for her visitor's want of sophistication. He was like an
Indian before a mirror, in a stolid excitement of apprehension and
delight. The most beautiful thing he ever saw was within the compass of
his full sight at last, and whether to detain it by force or persuasion
he did not know.

Her dark hair, silky as the cleanest tassels of the corn, fell as
naturally upon her perfect head as her teeth, white as the milky
corn-rows, moved in the May cherries of her lips. The delicate arches
of her brows, shaded by blackbirds' wings, enriched the clear sky of her
harmonious eyes, where mercy and nobility kept company, as in heaven.

"How could you know I was unselfish, Mr. Milburn?"

"Because I have heard you sing."

"Oh, yes! You hear me in our church, I remember."

"I have heard you every Sunday that you sung there for years," said
Meshach, with hardly a change of expression.

"Are you fond of music, Mr. Milburn?"

"Yes, I like all I have ever heard--birds and you."

"I will sing for you, then," said Vesta, taking the relief the talk
directed her to. A piano was in another room, but, to avoid changing the
scene, as well as to use a simpler accompaniment for an ignorant man's
ears, she brought her guitar, and, placing it in her lap, struck the
strings and the key, without waiting, to these tender words:

"Oh, for some sadly dying note,
Upon this silent hour to float,
Where, from the bustling world remote,
The lyre might wake its melody!
One feeble strain is all can