shoulders." Miss Moffatt's songs were a source
of constant bitterness to Mr Harcourt Howard;
for, as he usually played her lover, it fell to his
lot to stand and be sung to night after night,
however ill-chosen for the business of the piece
might be the moment that Miss Moffatt selected
for bursting into song.

"If I could even make faces at her when she
sings out of tune," said Mr Harcourt Howard
confidentially to his wife, "it would be some
comfort; but I'm obliged to look as if I liked
it."

Mr Trescott, however, whose facial expression,
was of comparatively small importance, since
he sat with his back to the audience, rather
approved of Miss Moffatt's mania for singing;
for the arrangement and copying of the band
parts produced him some little emolument over
and above his salary; but being so constantly
occupied, he was very seldom able to visit Mrs.
Walton's house. Alfred lounged in and out on
various pretexts; to bring Cordelia to spend the
afternoon; to fetch her away again; to make
appointments with Jack for long rambles into
the country—which appointments Alfred seldom
kept, however—or to bring messages from his
father to Mrs Walton. He was always careful
to inquire after her husband and Miss Janet,
and gave many hints about looking forward to
seeing a good deal of them in the winter, for he
and his father were engaged by the Dublin
manager for next season. Another circumstance
which contributed to put young Trescott
on an intimate footing in Mrs Walton's family,
was the following. In accordance with her
aut's express stipulation with Mr. Moffatt,
Mabel was to have the part of Ophelia. Mr
Wilfred J. Percival had selected the play of
Hamlet for his benefit night, which was rapidly
approaching, and Mabel, thoroughly mistress of
the words of the part, had yet to learn the tunes
of the snatches of song interspersed through the
mad scenes. "I know them well enough when
I hear them, Mabel," said Aunt Mary, "but I
can't attempt to sing them correctly enough to
teach them to you."

In this dilemma Alfred Trescott, with much
apparent diffidence, offered to bring his violin
and play over the tunes to Mabel until she
should have learned them by heart. Accordingly,
he came to their lodgings nearly every day for
a week, and made the little sitting-room over
the shoemaker's shop ring with the sympathetic
notes of his fiddle. Mabel had but little voice,
but it was pure and fresh, and her ear was
remarkably accurate. She caught from Alfred's
violin, not only the notes that she had to sing,
but also a certain accent and musicianly phrasing
that gave a strong yet simple pathos to the
quaint old melodies. Her aunt was delighted,
and predicted a great success. Mabel was
anxious and timid, but a few words that her
aunt dropped braced her nerves and strengthened
her resolution. She gathered that on the result
of her performance of Ophelia might possibly
depend her chance of being re-engaged by Mr.
Moffatt for the following season, and even—who
could tell? perhaps an appearance at the
Theatre Royal, Dublin, itself! and then she
would earn a salary, however trifling, and then
she would no longer be a burden on her aunt,
and then and then she might send for mamma
and Dooley! Oh, she would be strong and steady,
and brave, and do the very best that was in her.

She thought of her part at every leisure moment,
trying to form a clear conception of the hapless
Danish girl, and to put herself, her own
individuality, out of sight as much as possible
in repeating the words. She and Corda would
ramble out, in the early morning whenever
Mabel's presence was not required at
rehearsal, accompanying Jack in his sketching
excursions along the banks of the lovely river
Clare, and then Mabel would pull her little
well-worn Shakespeare out of her pocket, and,
sitting down on a smooth green velvet patch of
turf, would put the book into Corda's hand and
desire her to "hear her through her part." A
task of which Corda was not a little proud.

On one of these occasions, Alfred had joined
the party as they sat on the river's bank under
the trees, the two girls busy with Ophelia, and
Jack absorbed in an endeavour to transfer to
his sketch-book some wonderfully rich effects of
colour in the rocks and foliage on the opposite
side of the silver Clare.

"I was strolling past," said Alfred, "and
caught a glimpse of pussy-cat's chesnut curls
glinting through the green leaves. Now that
I am here, may I stay, Miss Earnshaw?"

"May you stay? Surely you have a right to
be here, if you choose."

"I have no right—or, at all event, no wish—
to be troublesome to you by my presence."

He spoke with a sort of proud humility that
touched Mabel.

"You don't trouble me at all, Mr Trescott,"
she answered. "Corda and I will go on with
Ophelia just the same. Won't we, Corda?"

The child, whose cheek was flushed with
pleasure at the sight of her brother, smiled and
nodded eagerly; and Mabel resumed:

"And I of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh."

The young man threw himself on the grass
beside his little sister, and clasping his hands
above his head, listened in silence. The morning
sun was shining down on the two young faces
—Mabel's so earnest and absorbed, Corda's
so smiling and eager. Little flickering lights
and shadows from the leafy boughs above
touched their glossy hair, and passed and
changed as the breeze moved them. At their
feet the river ran gurgling over its pebbly bed,
and Mabel's pure voice rose thrillingly into the
clear quiet air.

"Do you know Beethoven's Moonlight
sonata for the pianoforte, Miss Earnshaw?"
asked Alfred, when Mabel had ceased her
recitation.

''I have heard it,"answered Mabel,"and