be without companionship. Her day's occupation would
be chiefly sewing, for Mrs. Ormonde had made arrangements that she
should have regular employment for her needle from a certain charitable
'Home' at Hampstead. For this work she received payment, which--Mrs.
Ormonde made it appear--would suffice to discharge her obligations to
the Emersons and her landlady. Moreover, two days of the week she was
to spend at the said Home, where certain, not too exacting, duties were
assigned to her.

All this was very neatly contrived, and Mrs. Ormonde felt rather proud
of her success in so far meeting the requirements of a very difficult
case. A competent judge had reported so favourably of Thyrza's voice,
that there was a strong probability of its some day enabling her to
earn a living--should that be necessary--in one of the many paths which
our musical time opens to those thus happily endowed; no stress was
laid on that, however, for it was far from desirable that Thyrza should
be nursed into expectation of a golden future. Mrs. Ormonde had
determined that, if her exertion would accomplish it, Thyrza should yet
have as large a share of happiness as a sober hope may claim for a girl
of passionate instincts, of rare beauty, and, it might be, of latent
genius. To be sure, such claim cannot be extravagant. The happy people
of the world are the dull, unimaginative beings from whom the gods, in
their kindness, have veiled all vision of the rising and the setting
day, of sea-limits, and of the stars of the night, whose ears are
thickened against the voice of music, whose thought finds nowhere
mystery. Thyrza Trent was not of those. What joys were to be hers she
must pluck out of the fire, and there are but few of her kind whom in
the end the fire does not consume.

But for the present things seemed to be set going on a smooth track.
And to be sure, though she had thought it better to ask no such
kindness, Mrs. Ormonde knew that her friend Clara Emerson would very
shortly make a companion of Thyrza. It was Clara's nature to make a
friend of any 'nice' person who gave a sign of readiness for friendly
intercourse; the fact of Thyrza's being untaught, and a needle-plier,
would make no difference to her when she had discovered the girl's
sweetness of disposition.

Thyrza wondered much at the way in which her singing-master proceeded
with her instruction. She had looked forward to learning new songs, and
she was allowed to sing nothing but