r eyes directed keenly upward to the
top of the page of music confronting her. Then comes a rapid look into
Stephen's face, and a still more rapid look back again to her business,
her face having dropped its sadness, and acquired a certain expression
of mischievous archness the while; which lingered there for some time,
but was never developed into a positive smile of flirtation.

Stephen suddenly shifted his position from her right hand to her left,
where there was just room enough for a small ottoman to stand between
the piano and the corner of the room. Into this nook he squeezed
himself, and gazed wistfully up into Elfride's face. So long and so
earnestly gazed he, that her cheek deepened to a more and more crimson
tint as each line was added to her song. Concluding, and pausing
motionless after the last word for a minute or two, she ventured to look
at him again. His features wore an expression of unutterable heaviness.

'You don't hear many songs, do you, Mr. Smith, to take so much notice of
these of mine?'

'Perhaps it was the means and vehicle of the song that I was noticing: I
mean yourself,' he answered gently.

'Now, Mr. Smith!'

'It is perfectly true; I don't hear much singing. You mistake what I am,
I fancy. Because I come as a stranger to a secluded spot, you think I
must needs come from a life of bustle, and know the latest movements of
the day. But I don't. My life is as quiet as yours, and more solitary;
solitary as death.'

'The death which comes from a plethora of life? But seriously, I can
quite see that you are not the least what I thought you would be before
I saw you. You are not critical, or experienced, or--much to mind.
That's why I don't mind singing airs to you that I only half know.'
Finding that by this confession she had vexed him in a way she did not
intend, she added naively, 'I mean, Mr. Smith, that you are better, not
worse, for being only young and not very experienced. You don't think my
life here so very tame and dull, I know.'

'I do not, indeed,' he said with fervour. 'It must be delightfully
poetical, and sparkling, and fresh, and----'

'There you go, Mr. Smith! Well, men of another kind, when I get them to
be honest enough to own the truth, think just the reverse: that my life
must be a dreadful bore in its normal state, though pleasant for the
exceptional few days they pass here.'

'I could live here always!' he said, and with such a tone and look
of unconscious reve