rdon my sudden intrusion, Miss Royal. Your father introduced
me to the Signor, and I last night saw him at the opera. That will
account for my being in his room to-day." He glanced at the Italian
with a smile, as he added: "I heard very angry voices, and I thought,
if there was to be a duel, perhaps the Signor would need a second. You
must be greatly fatigued with exertion and excitement. Therefore, I
will merely congratulate you on your brilliant success last evening,
and wish you good morning."

"I _am_ fatigued," she replied; "but if I bid you good morning now, it
is with the hope of seeing you again soon. The renewal of acquaintance
with one whom my dear father loved is too pleasant to be willingly
relinquished."

"Thank you," he said. But the simple words were uttered with a look
and tone so deep and earnest, that she felt the color rising to her
cheeks.

"Am I then still capable of being moved by such tones?" she asked
herself, as she listened to his departing footsteps, and, for the
first time that morning, turned toward the mirror and glanced at her
own flushed countenance.

"What a time you've been having, dear!" exclaimed Madame, who came
bustling in a moment after. "Only to think of Mr. Fitzgerald's coming
here! His impudence goes a little beyond anything I ever heard of.
Wasn't it lucky that Boston friend should drop down from the skies,
as it were, just at the right minute; for the Signor's such a
flash-in-the-pan, there 's no telling what might have happened. Tell
me all about it, dear."

"I will tell you about it, dear mamma," replied Rosa; "but I must beg
you to excuse me just now; for I am really very much flurried and
fatigued. If you hadn't gone out, I should have told you this morning,
at breakfast, that I saw Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald at the opera, and
that I was singing at them in good earnest, while people thought I was
acting. We will talk it all over some time; but now I must study, for
I shall have hard work to keep the ground I have gained. You know I
must perform again to-night. O, how I dread it!"

"You are a strange child to talk so, when you have turned everybody's
head," responded Madame.

"Why should I care for everybody's head?" rejoined the successful
_cantatrice_. But she thought to herself: "I shall not feel, as I did
last night, that I am going to sing _merely_ to strangers. There will
be _one_ there who heard me sing to my dear father. I must try to
recall the intonations t