tival to bring a light into her lovely eyes that seemed to spread up
and around her white forehead and beautiful hair like a supernatural
lustre. There was a fire that animated her which nobody who saw its glow
or felt its warmth could question. Without that altar of music--But why
speculate on what she might have been if she had not been what she was?
That would be to consider not Benigna, but somebody else.

She was accompanying Elise through Handel's "Pastoral Symphony." Elise
began: "He is the righteous Saviour, and He shall speak peace unto the
heathen." At the first notes Leonhard looked hastily toward the window,
and if it had been a door he would have passed out on to the piazza,
that he might there have heard, unseeing, unseen. While he sat still and
looked and listened it seemed to him as if he had been engaged in
foolish games with children all his life. He sat as it were in the dust,
scorning his own insignificance.

The young girl who now sat, now stood beside her, must have been the
child of her training. For six years, indeed, they have lived together
under one roof, sharing one apartment. Within the hour just passed, that
has been said by them toward which all the talk and all the action of
the six years has tended, and the heart of the girl lies in the hand of
the woman, and what will the woman do with it?

Perhaps all that Benigna can do for Elise has to-day been accomplished.
It may be that to grow beside her now will be to grow in the shade when
shade is needed no longer, and when the effect will be to weaken life
and to deepen the spirit of dependence. Possibly sunlight though
scorching, winds though wild, would be better for Elise now than the
protecting shadow of her friend.

Looking at Elise, Leonhard feels more assured, more at home. She has a
kindly face, a lovely face, he decides, and what a deliciously rich,
smooth voice! She is rather after the willowy order in her slender
person, and when she begins to sing "Rejoice greatly," he looks at her
astonished, doubting whether the sound can really have proceeded from
her slender throat. He is again reminded of Marion, but by nothing he
hears or sees: poor Marion has her not small reputation as a singer in
A----, yet her voice, compared with this, is as wire--gold wire
indeed--wire with a _color_ of richness at least; while Elise's is as
honey itself--honey with the flavor of the sweetest flowers in it, and,
too, the suggestion of the bee's swif