A momentary pause.

“Did you speak, Hugh?”

He repeated the question.  Her eyes brightened a moment as she nodded in the affirmative; then they grew dim again, like windows seen from without when the light is withdrawn to an inner room.  She seemed as unconscious as a pictured Madonna.

“A beautiful day for your walk,” he ventured again.  The same pause, the same momentary interest as she answered, followed by the same abstraction.

“I suppose,” said he, at length, “that I am having the last of my idle days here; I expect to be ordered to sea shortly.”

“Indeed!” Mildred looked up.

“I shall be very sorry to leave here,” he continued.

“Yes, Innisfield is quite pretty this summer.  But I supposed that the pleasures of the seaport and of adventure abroad were more attractive to you than this monotonous life.”

“’Tis rather slow here, but—­I—­I meant to say that I shall be sorry to leave you.”

“Me?  Why, mother can take care of me.”

“Certainly she will, but I shall miss you.”

“No doubt you’ll think of us, when you are away; I’m sure we shall remember you.  We shall never sit down to the table without thinking of your vacant chair.”

It was impossible to misinterpret her kind, simple, sisterly tones.  And Hugh could but feel that they indicated no particle of tenderness for him.  The task of winning her was yet wholly to be done, and there was no prospect that she would give him the least encouragement in advance, if she did not utterly refuse him at the end.  He saw that he must not count on an easy victory, but prepare for it by a slow and gradual approach.

Mildred sat some time leaning out of the window, then opening her piano, for the first time since her father’s death, she sat down and played a nocturne by Mendelssohn.  The music seemed a natural expression of her feelings,—­suited to the heart “steeped in golden languors,” in the “tranced summer calm.”  The tones rang through the silent rooms, pervading all the charmed air, so that the ear tingled in listening,—­as the lips find a sharpness with the luscious flavor of the pine-apple.  The sound reached to the kitchen, and brought a brief pleasure, but a bitterer pang of envy, to Lucy’s swelling bosom.  It calmed for a moment the evil spirit in Hugh’s troubled heart.  And Mrs. Kinloch in her solitary chamber, though she had always detested the piano, thought she had never heard such music before.  She had found a new sense, that thrilled her with an exquisite delight.  It was a good omen, she was sure, that Mildred should now, after so long a time, feel inclined to play.  Only a light heart, and one supremely careless or supremely happy, could touch the keys like that.  “Hugh must be a fortunate boy,” she thought; and she could have hugged him for joy.  What thought Hugh, as she rose from her seat at the instrument like one in a trance and walked towards the hall?  Conflicting emotions struggled for mastery; but, hardly knowing what he did, he started up and offered her a caress.  It was not unusual, but her nerves had acquired an unwonted sensitiveness; she shuddered, and rushed from him up the stairs.  He could have torn his hair with rage.