hat Italian song as the
infinite mystery of the hills is borne along the sound of distant
sheep-bells. Then in the souls that were in that crowded house arose
little memories of a great while since that were quite quite dead,
and lived awhile again during that marvellous song.

And a strange chill went into the blood of all that listened, as
though they stood on the border of bleak marshes and the North Wind
blew.

And some it moved to sorrow and some to regret, and some to an
unearthly joy,--then suddenly the song went wailing away like the
winds of the winter from the marshlands when Spring appears from the
South.

So it ended. And a great silence fell fog-like over all that house,
breaking in upon the end of a chatty conversation that Cecilia,
Countess of Birmingham, was enjoying with a friend.

In the dead hush Signorina Russiano rushed
from the stage; she appeared again running among the audience, and
dashed up to Lady Birmingham.

'Take my soul,' she said; 'it is a beautiful soul. It can worship
God, and knows the meaning of music and can imagine Paradise. And if
you go to the marshlands with it you will see beautiful things;
there is an old town there built of lovely timbers, with ghosts in
its streets.'

Lady Birmingham stared. Everyone was standing up. 'See,' said
Signorina Russiano, 'it is a beautiful soul.'

And she clutched at her left
breast a little above the heart, and there was the soul shining in
her hand, with the green and blue lights going round and round and
the purple flare in the midst.

'Take it,' she said, 'and you will love all that is beautiful, and
know the four winds, each one by his name, and the songs of the
birds at dawn. I do not want it, because I am not free. Put it to
your left breast a little above the heart.'

Still everybody was
standing up, and Lady Birmingham felt uncomfortable.

'Please offer it to some one else,' she said.

'But they all have souls already,' said Signorina Russiano.

And everybody went on standing up. And Lady Birmingham took the soul
in her hand.

'Perhaps it is lucky,' she said.

She felt that she wanted to pray.

She half-closed her eyes, and said '_Unberufen_'. Then she put the
soul to her left breast a little above the heart, and hoped that the
people would sit down and the singer go away.

Instantly a heap of clothes collapsed before her. For a moment, in
the shadow among the seats, those who were born in the dusk hour
m