ent voice for all that,
of high range, and with a resonant and finely sympathetic _timbre_
that seemed easily to find its way (according to all accounts) to the
feminine heart. And the music of this serenade was really admirable, of
subtle and delicate quality, and yet full of the simplest melody, and
perhaps none the less to be appreciated that it seemed to suggest a
careful study of the best English composers. The words were conventional
enough, of course; but then the whole story of "The Squire's Daughter"
was as artificial as the wigs and powder and patches of the performers;
and even now, when Harry Thornhill, bereft of all his gay silk and lace
and ruffles, and become plain Mr. Lionel Moore, in ordinary evening
dress, sang to Miss Georgie Lestrange's accompaniment, the crowd did not
think of the words--they were entranced by the music. "The starry
night"--this is how Harry Thornhill, in the opera, addresses Grace
Mainwaring, he standing in the moonlit garden and looking up to her
window--

"The starry night brings me no rest;
My ardent love now stands confessed;
Appear, my sweet, and shame the skies,
That have no splendor,
That have no splendor like thine eyes!"

The serenade was followed by a general murmur of approbation, rather
than by any loud applause; but the pretty Mrs. Mellord came up to the
singer and was most profuse of thanks. Prudently, however, he moved away
from the piano, being accompanied by Miss Georgie Lestrange, who seemed
rather pleased with the prominence this position gave her; and very soon
a surreptitious message reached them both that they were wanted below.
When they went down into the hall they found that Lady Adela had got her
party collected, including Miss Lestrange's brother Percy; thereupon the
four ladies got into the brougham and drove off, while the three
gentlemen proposed to follow on foot, and have a cigarette the while. It
was a pleasantly warm night, and they had no farther to go than Sir Hugh
Cunyngham's house, which is one of the large garden-surrounded mansions
on the summit of Campden Hill.

When at length they arrived there and had entered by the wooden gate,
the semicircular carriage-drive, lit by two solitary lamps, and the
front of the house itself, half-hidden among the black trees, seemed
somewhat sombre and repellent at this silent hour of the morning; but
they found a more cheerful radiance streaming out from the hall-door,
which had been