y yielding to his
suit.

He started. Through the open windows of the adjacent chapel came the
opening notes of a hymn, sung with a sweetness and power that in the
still summer night seemed almost divine. Then other voices joined, and
partially obscured the melody; but above all floated a voice that to
his trained ear had some of the rarest qualities of music.

"That's Madge," he muttered, and strode rapidly to the door. Again,
in the second stanza, the rich, pure voice thrilled his every nerve,
gaining rather than losing in its effect by his approach.

Unconsciously the poor girl had yielded to the old habit of
self-expression in music. Her heart had been heavy, and now was sad
indeed. Earthly hope had been growing dim, but the words of faith she
had heard had not been without sustaining influence. With the deep
longing of her woman's nature for love--divine love, if earthly love
must be denied--her voice in its pathos was unconsciously an appeal,
full of entreaty. She half forgot her surroundings; they were nothing
in her present mood. The little audience of strangers gave a sense of
solitude.

The quaint old tune was rich in plaintive harmony. It had survived
the winnowing process of time, and had endeared itself to the
popular heart because expressive of the heart's unrest and desire for
something unpossessed. Along this old, well-worn musical channel Madge
poured the full tide of her feeling, which had both the solemnity and
the pathos inseparable from all deep and sacred emotion. Graydon was
now sure that he must dismiss one of his impressions of Madge, and
finally. No one could sing like that and be trivial at heart. "I don't
understand her," he muttered, gloomily, "but I appreciate one thing.
She has withheld from me her confidence, she does not wish to keep
her old place in my affection, and has deposed herself from it.
She appears to be under the influence of a brood of sentimental
aspirations. I shall remain my old self, nor shall I gratify her by
admiring wonder. The one thing that would make life a burden to me is
an intense, aesthetical, rapturously devotional woman, with her mental
eye fixed on a vague ideal. In such society I should feel much like a
man compelled to walk on stilts all the time. The idea of going back
to the hotel, smoking a cigar, and talking of the ordinary affairs of
life, after such music as that!"

"It was very kind of you to come over for me," said Madge, as she came
out. "Tha