e had which he would have thought worthy of the
acceptance of queens: a tear phial of true Roman glass, a Japanese print
or two, a few coins that were old already when Christ was young. And he
would have parted with any one of these treasures to Mrs. Hawthorne,
though not wholly without a pang: first, because he liked her, and then
because he had eaten as it seemed to him a good deal of her bread and
syrup. But she would not have cared for these things; while bereaving
himself, he would have enriched her not at all.

The duty of doing something for Mrs. Hawthorne's pleasure was felt even
by Charlie Hunt, who took her to a concert. When Gerald heard of it, he
searched more persistently and, fate aiding, found something which might
give the lady amusement, he thought, and would certainly afford an
opportunity that would hardly have come her way without his good
offices.

The morning mail brought him a note relating to his project; he did not
wait for afternoon to communicate its contents.

It was eleven when he rang at Mrs. Hawthorne's door. He had hardly
finished asking the servant whether the signora were at home when he
heard her voice upstairs, singing behind closed doors.

She had said so many times, when he went through the formality of having
himself announced and waiting for permission to present himself, "Why
didn't you come right up?" that this morning he said to the servant, "It
imports not to advise her. I shall mount." Did the servant look faintly
ironical, or did Gerald mistakenly imagine it?

The tune she sang sounded familiar. It must be a hymn, he decided, but
could not remember what hymn, or even be sure it was one he had heard
before, hymns are so much alike. He stopped at the sitting-room door and
waited, listening to the big, free, untrained velvet voice, true
throughout the low and medium registers, flat on the upper notes, the
singer having carelessly pitched her hymn too high. He could hear the
lines now, given with a swing that made them curl over at the ends, and
with a punch on certain of the syllables, irrespective of their meaning:

"Feed me _with_--the heavenly manna
In this _barr_--en wilder_ness_;
Be my _shield_, my sword, my banner,
Be the Lord--my righteous_ness_!"

When she came to the words,

"Death of death and hell's destruction,"

a bang and rattling ensued, as if some one were taking a practical hand
in that work. The heavenly ferryman was thereupon be