n the shade knitting cotton socks,
and Madelon was leaning back in her chair, the lamplight
falling on her brown hair and white dress, a piece of
embroidery between her fingers, but her hands lying in her
lap, and such sad thoughts in her poor little weary head. So
this was the end of it all? Monsieur Horace was going to be
married, and then live abroad--yes, she was certain he would
live abroad--who would stay in England if they could help it?--
and she would never, never see him again! The one thought
revolved in her brain with a sort of dull weariness, which
prevented her seizing more than half its meaning, but which
only required a touch to startle it into acutest pain. No one
spoke or moved, and this oppressive silence of a room full of
people seemed to perplex her as with a sense of unreality, and
was more distracting for the moment than would have been the
confusion of a dozen tongues around her.

Presently, however, Graham came in from the garden, and walked
straight up to her.

"Will you not sing something?" he said.

She rose at once without speaking or raising her eyes, and
went to the piano.

"What shall I sing?" she said then, turning over her music.

"Anything--it does not matter," said Graham, who had followed
her; "never mind your music--sing the first thing that comes
into your head."

She considered a moment, and then began.

When Madelon sang, her hearers could not choose but listen; in
other matters she had very sufficient abilities, but in
singing she rose to genius. Gifted by nature with a superb
voice, an exceptional musical talent, these had been carefully
cultivated during the last two or three years, and the result
was an art that was no art, a noble and simple style, which
gave an added intensity to her natural powers of expression,
and forbade every suspicion of affectation. As she sang now,
the Doctor roused up from his doze, and Mrs. Vavasour dropped
her work; only Maria Leslie, sitting in the shadow of the
window-curtain, knitted on with increased assiduity.

It was a German song, Schumann's "Sehnsucht," that she was
singing; it was the first that had come to her mind at
Graham's bidding, and, still preoccupied, she began it almost
without thought of the words and sentiment; but she had not
sung two lines, when some hidden emotion made itself felt in
her face with a quite irresistible enthusiasm and pathos.
These were the words:--

"Ich blick' im mein Herz, und ich bl