her embroidery, listening to the talk of Sontag, of
Clementi, of musicians and singers dead and gone. She noticed that the
ladies treated Signore Graziano with the utmost reverence, even the
positive Miss Prunty furling her opinions in deference to his gayest
hint. They talked too of Madame Lilli, and always as if she were still
young and fair, as if she had died yesterday, leaving the echo of her
triumph loud behind her. And yet all this had happened years before
Goneril had ever seen the light.

"Mees Goneril is feeling very young!" said the signorino, suddenly
turning his sharp, kind eyes upon her.

"Yes," said Goneril, all confusion.

Madame Petrucci looked almost annoyed--the gay, serene little lady that
nothing ever annoyed.

"It is she that is young!" she cried, in answer to an unspoken thought.
"She is a baby!"

"Oh, I am seventeen!" said Goneril.

They all laughed, and seemed at ease again.

"Yes, yes; she is very young," said the signorino.

But a little shadow had fallen across their placid entertainment: the
spirit had left their memories; they seemed to have grown shapeless,
dusty, as the fresh and comely faces of dead Etruscan kings crumble into
mould at the touch of the pitiless sunshine.

"Signorino," said Madame Petrucci, presently, "if you will accompany me
we will perform one of your charming melodies."

Signor Graziano rose a little stiffly and led the pretty, withered
little diva to the piano.

Goneril looked on, wondering, admiring. The signorino's thin white hands
made a delicate, fluent melody, reminding her of running water under
the rippled shade of trees, and, like a high, sweet bird, the thin,
penetrating notes of the singer rose, swelled, and died away, admirably
true and just even in this latter weakness. At the end Signor Graziano
stopped his playing to give time for an elaborate cadenza. Suddenly
Madame Petrucci gasped; a sharp discordant sound cracked the delicate
finish of her singing. She put her handkerchief to her mouth.

"Bah!" she said, "this evening I am abominably husky."

The tears rose to Goneril's eyes. Was it so hard to grow old? This doubt
made her voice loudest of all in the chorus of mutual praise and thanks
which covered the song's abrupt finale.

And then there came a terrible ordeal. Miss Prunty, anxious to divert
the current of her friend's ideas, had suggested that the girl should
sing. Signor Graziano and madame insisted; they would take no refusal.