happy!" she cried. "Ah! if you knew how I love
dancing!--and it is so many years since I have had a waltz!"

Later on in the evening, Lady Lorrimer, the fashionable, gay,
kind-hearted hostess, came up to her.

"Miss Linders," she said, "I have a favour to ask of you. My
aunt, Lady Adelaide Spencer, is passionately fond of music,
and Mrs. Vavasour has been telling us how beautifully you
sing. Would it be too much to ask you for one song? It is not
fair, I know, in the midst of a ball, but the next dance is
only a quadrille, I see----"

"I shall be most happy," says Madelon, blushing up, and
following Lady Lorrimer down a long corridor into a music-
room. There were not above a dozen people present when she
began to sing, but the room was quite full before she rose
from the piano. She sang one song after another, as it was
asked for--French, German, English. The excitement of the
moment, the sense of triumph and success, seemed to fill her
with a sort of exaltation; never had her voice been so true
and powerful, her accent so pure, her expression so grand and
pathetic; she sang as if inspired by the very genius of song.

"We must not be unconscionable, and deprive Miss Linders of
all her dancing," said Lady Lorrimer at last--"you would like
to go back to the ball-room now, would you not? But first let
me introduce you to my aunt; she will thank you better than I
can for your singing."

Lady Adelaide Spencer, the great lady of the neighbourhood, a
short, stout, good-natured old woman in black velvet, and a
grizzled front, gave Madelon a most flattering reception.

"Sit down and talk to me a little," she said. "I want to thank
you again for your lovely voice and singing. It is not every
young lady who would give up her dancing just for an old
woman's caprice."

"Indeed I like singing as much as dancing," says Madelon.

"And you do both equally well, my dear; you may believe me
when I tell you so, for I know what good dancing is, and I
have been watching you all the evening. You must come and see
me and sing to me again. You live with your aunt, Mrs.
Treherne, Mrs. Vavasour tells me."

"Yes," replied Madelon.

"I knew Mrs. Treherne well years ago; tell her from me when
you go home, that an old woman has fallen in love with her
pretty niece, and ask her to bring you to see me. She is
staying at Ashurst, I believe?"

"Yes," said Madelon, "we are both at Dr. Vavasour's house. I
have been there all the spring