soft pedal_.
Cast thy heart, do not faint or wail,
[_both pedals down, quicker_.
Let thy hand be firm and steady,
[_loud, and hold on to last syllable_.
Do not let thy spi-rit quail,
[_bang! B natural. With resolution_.
Bu-ut. . . .
[_hurricane of false notes, etc., etc._

But now, poor thing, the fire had reached her, and her spirit quailed
immediately. Perhaps it was only natural that as her courage failed
something else should take its place; an implacable burning resentment
against her two betrayers, her lover and her friend. She rocked herself
to and fro. Lover and friend. "Oh, never, never trust in man's love or
woman's friendship henceforth forever!" So learned Lady Newhaven the
lesson of suffering.

"Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me," she sobbed, "and mine
acquaintance out of my sight."

A ring at the door-bell proved that the latter part of the text, at any
rate, was not true in her case.

A footman entered.

"Not at home. Not at home," she said, impatiently.

"I said not at home, but the gentleman said I was to take up his card,"
said the man, presenting a card.

When Captain Pratt tipped, he tipped heavily.

Lady Newhaven read it.

"No. Yes. I will see him," she said. It flashed across her mind that she
must be civil to him, and that her eyes were not red. She had not shed
tears.

The man picked the newspaper from the floor, put it on a side table, and
withdrew.

Captain Pratt came in, bland, deferential, orchid in button-hole.

It was not until he was actually in the room, his cold appraising eyes
upon her, that the poor woman realized that her position towards him had
changed. She could not summon up the nonchalant distant civility which,
according to her ideas, was sufficient for her country neighbors in
general, and the Pratts in particular.

Captain Pratt opined that the weather, though cold, was seasonable.

Lady Newhaven agreed.

Captain Pratt regretted the hard frost on account of the hunting. Four
hunters eating their heads off, etc.

Lady Newhaven thought the thaw might come any day.

Captain Pratt had been skating yesterday on the parental flooded meadow.
Flooded with fire-engine. Men out of work. Glad of employment, etc.

How kind of Captain Pratt to employ them.

Not at all. It was his father. Duties of the landed gentry, etc. He
believed if the frost continued they would sk