assurance of success, the world at large only scoffed at our attempting.
To be able to say, "Yes, here I am, despite all your forebodings and all
your predictions,--I knew it was 'in me'!" is a very proud thing, and
such a moment of vaingloriousness is pardonable enough.

How enjoyable at such a moment of triumph was it to hear Lizzy sing and
play, making that miserable old piano discourse in a guise it had
never dreamed of! She was in one of those moods wherein she blended
the wildest flights of fancy with dashes of quaint humor, now breathing
forth a melody of Spohr's in accents of thrilling pathos, now hitting
off in improvised doggerel a description of Aix and its company,
with mimicries of their voice and manner irresistibly droll. In these
imitations the Count, and even Beecher himself, figured, till Grog,
fairly worn out with laughter, had to entreat her to desist.

As for Beecher, he was a good-tempered fellow, and the little raillery
at himself took nothing from the pleasure of the description, and he
laughed in ready acknowledgment of many a little trait of his own manner
that he never suspected could have been detected by another.

"Ain't she wonderful,--ain't she wonderful?" exclaimed Grog, as she
strolled out into the garden, and left them alone together.

"What I can't make out is, she has no blank days," said Beecher. "She
was just as you saw her there, the whole time we were at Aix; and while
she's rattling away at the piano, and going on with all manner of fun,
just ask her a serious question,--I don't care about what,----and she'll
answer you as if she had been thinking of nothing else for the whole day
before."

"Had she been born in _your_ rank of life, Beecher, where would she
be be now,--tell me that?" said Davis; and there was an almost fierce
energy in the words as he spoke them.

"I can tell you one thing," cried Beecher, in a transport of
delight,--"there's no rank too high for her this minute."

"Well said, boy,--well said," exclaimed Davis, warmly; "and here's to
her health."

"That generous toast and cheer must have been in honor of myself," said
Lizzy, peeping in at the window, "and in acknowledgment I beg to invite
you both to tea."

CHAPTER IX. A SAUNTER BY MOONLIGHT.

Lizzy Davis had retired to her room somewhat weary after the day's
journey, not altogether unexcited by her meeting with her father. How
was it that there was a gentleness, almost a tenderness, in his mann