," as she was named in the Precincts, had
long ago "come round" about Mrs. Dion Leith, and had been heard to
say of her, "She's got more than a contralto, she's got a heart, and I
couldn't say that of some women in high positions." This was "aimed"
at the Dean's wife, Mrs. Jasper, who gave herself musical airs, and
sometimes tried to "interfere with the Precentor's arrangements," which
meant falling foul of "Henry."

As Rosamund looked down upon the rows of friendly and familiar faces
from the platform, as she heard the prolonged applause which greeted her
before she sang, and the cries of "Encore!" which saluted her when she
finished, she felt that she had given her heart irrevocably to Welsley,
and the thought came to her, "How can I leave it?" This was cozy,
and London could never be cozy. She could identify herself with the
concentrated life here, without feeling it a burden upon her. For she
was so much beloved that people even respected her privacy, and fell in
with what she called "my absurd little ways." In London, however many
people you knew, you saw strangers all the time, strangers with hard,
indifferent eyes and buttoned-up mouths. And one could never say of
London "my London."

When the concert was over she wound a veil about her pale yellow hair,
wrapped a thin cloak round her shoulders, took up her music case and
asked for Beattie. An eager boy with a smiling round face, one of the
Cathedral Choristers, darted off to find Mrs. Daventry, the sister of
"our Mrs. Leith"; Mr. Dickinson gently, but decisively, took the music
case from Rosamund's hand with an "I'll carry that home for you"; a thin
man, like an early primrose obliged by some inadvertence of spring to
work for its living, sidled up and begged for the name of "your most
beautiful and chaste second encore for our local paper, the 'Welsley
Whisperer'"; and Mrs. Dickinson in a pearl gray shawl, with an
artificial pink camellia carelessly entangled in her marvelously smooth
mouse-colored hair, appeared to tell Mrs. Leith authoritatively that
"Madame Patey _in her heyday_ never sang 'O Rest in the Lord' as we have
heard it sung to-night."

Then Rosamund, pleasantly surrounded by dear provincial enthusiasts,
made her way to the door where Beattie, with more enthusiasts, was
waiting for her; and they all came out into the narrow High Street,
and found the September moon riding above their heads to give them a
greeting nobly serene and beneficent, and