g else saved me. If there came a wet day, or one
that was not pleasant for walking, she had a thousand ways of making
time fly. She played billiards as well as any man; she read aloud more
beautifully and perfectly than I have ever heard any one else. She made
every room she entered cheerful; she had a fund of anecdote that never
seemed to be exhausted.

But the time she liked best for weaving her spells was after sunset,
before the lamps were lighted.

"You are fond of music, Sir Edgar," she would say to me. "Come, and I
will sing you some songs I used to sing years ago."

And she did sing. Listening to her, I could well believe in the
far-famed Orpheus lute. It was enough to bewilder any man. She had a
sweet, rich voice, a contralto of no ordinary merit, and the way in
which she used it was something never to be forgotten.

There was a deep bay-window in the drawing-room, my favorite nook; from
it there was a splendid view of waving trees and blooming flowers. She
would place my chair there for me and then sing until she sung my senses
away. There was such power, such pathos, such passion, in her voice that
no one could listen to it unmoved.

Then, when she had sung until my very senses were steeped in the sweet
madness of her music, she would come and sit, sometimes by my side,
sometimes on a Turkish cushion at my feet.

And then--well, I do not like to say more, but as women can woo, she
wooed me. Sometimes her hand, so warm and soft, would touch mine;
sometimes, to see what I was reading, she would bend over me until her
hair brushed my cheek and the perfume of the flowers she always wore
reached me.

Thank God, I say again, that I was shielded by a pure love.

"How I love Crown Anstey!" she said to me one evening; "if I were asked
to choose between being crowned Queen of Great Britain or mistress of
Crown Anstey, I should prefer to remain here."

How well I remember that evening! The golden summer was dying then; the
flowers seemed to be yielding all their sweetest perfumes to it; there
was a lovely light from the evening sky that lingered on the tufted lime
trees; the birds were singing a faint, sweet vesper hymn; the time so
soon was coming when they were to cross the sunny seas in search of
warmer climes.

I had been reading to Clare, but she did not seem to be quite so well
and asked to be left alone.

"Let Coralie play and sing for you, Edgar," she said; "I shall hear the
faint sound of it, and