had
appreciated the real and practical compliment thus conveyed. And he did
enjoy it. Song after song she sang, now grave and pathetic, now gay and
arch, and it seemed to him he could sit there listening for ever. Hers
was no concert-hall voice, but it was very sweet and true, and was
entirely free from mannerism. She did not think it necessary to roll
her r's in the approved professional style whenever that consonant came
at the end of a word, or to pronounce "love" exactly according to its
phonetic spelling, but every word was enunciated distinctly, and
therefore as intelligible as though she had been talking. In short, her
singing was utterly without self-consciousness or affectation, and
therein lay no small a proportion of its charm.

"There! That's enough for one night!" she cried at last, closing the
instrument.

"Not for us," declared Blachland. "But you mustn't overstrain your
voice. Really to me this has been an immense treat."

"I'm so glad," said the girl brightly. "I suppose, though, you don't
hear much music up-country. Don't you miss it a great deal?"

"Yes, indeed," he answered, and then a picture crossed his mind of
evening after evening, and Hermia yawning, and reiterating how intensely
bored to death she was. What on earth was it that made retrospect so
utterly distasteful to him now? He would have given all he possessed to
be able to blot that episode out of his life altogether. Hermia the
chances were as five hundred to one he would never set eyes on again--
and if he did, she was powerless to injure him; for she had not the
slightest legal hold upon him whatever. But the episode was there, a
black, unsavoury, detestable fact, and it there was no getting round.

"Now, sonny, it's time for you to turn in," said Bayfield. "By George,
I'll have to think seriously about sending that nipper to school," he
added, as the boy, having said good-night, went out of the room. "But
hang it, what'll we do without the chappie? He's the only one left.
But he ought to learn more than Lyn can teach him now."

"Father, you _are_ mean," laughed the girl. "Reflecting on my careful
tuition that way. Isn't he, Mr Blachland?"

"I wonder how it would be," pursued Bayfield, "to make some arrangement
with Earle and send him over there four or five days a week to be
coached by that new English teacher they've got."

"Who is he?" said Blachland. "A Varsity man?"

"'Tisn't `he.' It's a she," retur