t Nina had
no word for Estelle; she seemed preoccupied about something.

Never had Harry Thornhill dressed so quickly; and when, in his gay
costume of flowered silk and ruffles, tied wig and buckled shoes, he
tapped at Miss Burgoyne's door and entered, he found that this young
lady was still in the curtained apartment, though she had sent out Jane
to see that her two visitors were being looked after. Lionel, too,
helped himself to some tea; and it was with a singular feeling of relief
that he discovered, as he presently did, that both Lady Cunyngham and
her daughter were quite charmed with the piece, so far as they had seen
it. They appeared to put the farcicality altogether aside, and to have
been much impressed by the character of the music.

"What a pretty girl that Miss Ross is!" said the younger of the two
ladies, incidentally. "But she is not English, is she? I thought I
could detect a trace of foreign accent here and there."

"No, she is Italian," Lionel made answer. "Her name is really
Rossi--Antonia Rossi--but her intimate friends call her Nina."

"What a beautiful voice she has!" Miss Honnor continued. "So fresh and
pure and sweet. I think she has a far more beautiful voice than--"

He quickly held up his hand, and the hint was taken.

"And she puts such life into her part--she seems to be really
light-hearted and merry," resumed Miss Honnor, who appeared to have been
much taken by Nina's manner on the stage. "Do you know, Mr. Moore, I
could not help to-night thinking more than once of "The Chaplet" and my
sisters and their amateur friends. The difference between an amateur
performance and a performance of trained artists is so marvellous; it
doesn't seem to me to be one of degree at all; at an amateur
performance, however clever it may be, I am conscious all the time that
the people are assuming something quite foreign to themselves, whereas
on the stage the people seem to be the actual characters they profess to
be. I forget they are actors and actresses--"

"You must be a good audience, Miss Cunyngham," said he (it used to be
"Miss Honnor" in Strathaivron, but that was some time ago--_then_ he was
not decked out and painted for exhibition on the stage).

"Oh, I like to believe," she said. "I don't wish to criticise. I wholly
and delightfully give myself up to the illusion. Mother and I go so
seldom to the theatre that we are under no temptation to begin and ask
how this or that is done, or to make a