care."

"Don't be so sure of that, Miss Nina," Mrs. Grey said, with a quiet
smile. "I dare say many a one of those girls has worked as hard at her
music as ever you have done, and has very little to show for it. I dare
say many a one of them would be glad to change her position for yours--I
mean, for the position you will have ere long. Do you know, Mr. Moore,"
she said, turning to Nina's other companion, "that I am quite sure of
this--if Miss Burgoyne's under-study was drafted into a travelling
company, I am quite sure Miss Nina here could take her place with
perfect confidence."

"I don't see why not," he said, as if it were a matter of course.

"Then you know what would happen," Mrs. Grey continued, turning again to
the young lady, in whose future she seemed greatly interested. "Miss
Burgoyne would want a holiday, or her doctor would order her to give her
voice a fortnight's rest, or she might catch a bad cold--and then comes
your chance! You know the music thoroughly? you know every bit of Miss
Burgoyne's 'business;' and Mr. Moore would be on the stage, or in the
wings, to guide you as to your entrances and exits. That will be a proud
night for me, my dear; for I'll be there--oh, yes, I'll be there; and if
I have any stage experience at all, I tell you it will be a splendid
triumph--with such a voice as yours--and there won't be any more talk of
keeping you as under-study to Miss Girond. No," she added, with a shrewd
smile, "but there will be something else. Miss Burgoyne won't like it;
she doesn't like rivals near the throne, from what I can hear. She'll
try to get you drafted off into one of the country companies--mark my
words."

"The country?" said Nina, rather aghast. "To go away into the country?"

"But look at the chance, my dear," said the little ex-actress, eagerly.
"Look at the practice--the experience! And then, if you only take care
of your voice, and don't strain it by overwork, then you'll be able to
come back to London and just command any engagement you may want."

"To come back to London after a long time?" she said, thoughtfully; and
she was somewhat grave and reserved as they strolled idly back through
the gardens, and through the Palace buildings, to the riverside hotel.

But no far-reaching possibilities of that kind were allowed to interfere
with Nina's perfect enjoyment of this little dinner-party that had been
got up in her honor. They had a room all to themselves on an upper
floor; t