p, and I will
hum you a dear little tune. Then you must positively scamper away to
bed, or your mamma will scold us both, and your mammie also."

A tall yellow woman with a white handkerchief wound turban-style
around her head, came stealthily forward, and said:

"Miss, give her to me. I went downstairs for a drink of water, and
when I got back I missed her. Come, baby, let me carry you to bed or
you will have the croup, and the doctors might cut your throat."

"Wait, mammie, till she sings that little tune she promised; then I
will go."

Regina sat down in a low cushioned chair, took the little girl on her
lap, and while the curly head nestled on her shoulder, and one arm
clasped her neck, she rested her chin upon the brown hair, and sang
in a very sweet, subdued tone that most soothing of all lullaby
strains, Wallace's "Cradle Song."

As she proceeded, the turbaned head of the nurse kept time, swaying
to and fro in the background, and a sweeter picture never adorned
canvas than that which Mr. Palma watched in front of his library
fire, and which photographed itself indelibly upon his memory.

Singer and child occupied very much the same position as the figures
in the _Madonna della Sedia_, and no more lovely woman and child ever
sat for its painter.

As Mr. Palma's fastidiously critical eyes rested on the sad perfect
face of Regina, with the long black lashes veiling her eyes, and the
bare arms and shoulders gleaming above the silver gauze of her
drapery, he silently admitted that her beauty seemed strangely
sanctified, and more spirituelle than ever before. Contrasting that
sweet white figure, over whose delicate lips floated the dreamy
rhythm of the cradle chant, with the hundreds of handsome,
accomplished, witty, and brilliant women who thronged the ball-room
he had just left, this man of the world confessed that his proud
ambitious heart was hopelessly in bondage to the fair young singer.

"Sleep, my little one, sleep,--
Sleep, my pretty one,--sleep."

At that moment he was powerfully tempted to delay no longer to take
her to his bosom for ever; and it cost him a struggle to sit
patiently, while every fibre of his strong frame was thrilling with a
depth and fervour of feeling that threatened to bear away all
dictates of discretion. Ah! what a divine melody seemed to ring
through all his future as he leaned eagerly forward, and listened to
the closing words, softly reite