Among the Gold; and Mrs. Chinnery, an old-young woman with a
long, lean neck, which she twisted this way and that in the exertion of
producing her notes, declared her love for an Old Armchair. The
gentlemen, in baritones and profundos, told the amorous adventures of
Ben Bolt; or desired to know what Home would be Without a Mother. Purdy
spiced the hour with a comic song, and in the character of an outraged
wife tickled the risibility of the ladies.

WELL, WELL, SIR, SO YOU'VE COME AT LAST!
I THOUGHT YOU'D COME NO MORE.
I'VE WAITED, WITH MY BONNET ON,
FROM ONE TILL HALF-PAST FOUR!

Zara and Mrs. Long both produced HOME THEY BROUGHT HER WARRIOR DEAD!
from their portfolios; so Zara good-naturedly gave way and struck up
ROBERT, TOI QUE J'AIME! which she had added to her repertory while in
England. No one could understand a word of what she sang; but the mere
fitting of the foreign syllables to the appropriate notes was
considered a feat in itself, and corroborative of the high gifts Zara
possessed.

Strenuous efforts were needed to get Miss Amelia to her feet. She was
dying, as Mary knew, to perform her duet with Purdy; but when the
moment came she put forward so many reasons for not complying that most
people retired in despair. It took Mary to persevere. And finally the
little woman was persuaded to the piano, where, red with gratification,
she sat down, spread her skirts and unclasped her bracelets.

"Poor little Amelia!" said Mary to herself, as she listened to a
romantic ballad in which Purdy, in the character of a high-minded
nobleman, sought the hand of a virtuous gipsy-maid. "And he doesn't
give her a second thought. If one could just tell her not to be so
silly!"

Not only had Purdy never once looked near Amelia--for the most part he
had sat rather mum-chance, half-way in and out of a French window, even
Zara's attempts to enliven him falling flat--but, during an extra loud
performance, Tilly had confided to Mary the family's plans for their
spinster relative. And: "The poor little woman!" thought Mary again as
she listened. For, after having been tied for years to the sick bed of
a querulous mother; after braving the long sea-voyage, which for such a
timid soul was full of ambushes and terrors, Miss Amelia had reached
her journey's end only to find both father and brother comfortably
wived, and with no use for her. Neither of them wanted her. She had
been given house-room first by her father, then b