her being aware of it, in the background of her mind.  But she was keenly disappointed that he was not impressed by her dream, and was inclined to consider it in the light of a mere coincidence.  In the first place, he hadn’t been shipwrecked, and that she should dream of shipwreck was most natural since she knew that he had gone a-seafaring, and any gust of wind in the street was enough to excite the idea of a castaway in the unclosed cellular tissues of her brain.  She did not answer, and he stood trying to force an answer from her, but she could not, nor did she wish to think that her dream was no more than a merely physiological phenomenon.  But just at that moment Mr. Innes was waiting to speak to Sir Owen.

He had a great deal to say on the subject of the disgraceful neglect of the present Royal Family in not publishing the works of their single artistic ancestor, Henry VIII.  Up to the present time none of his numerous writings, except one anthem played in the Chapel at Windsor, was known; the pieces that were going to be played that evening lay in MS. in the British Museum, and had probably not been heard for two, maybe three hundred years.  Encouraged by Sir Owen’s sympathy, he referred again, in his speech to his audience, to the indifference of the present Royal Family to art, and he added that it was strange that he should be doing at Dowlands what the Queen or the Prince of Wales should have done long ago, namely, the publication of their ancestor’s work with all the prestige that their editorship or their patronage could give it.

“I must go,” she said; “they are waiting for me.”

She took her place among the viol players and began playing; but she had forgotten to tune her instrument, and her father stopped the performance.  She looked at him, a little frightened, and laughed at her mistake.  The piece they were playing was by Henry VIII., a masterpiece, Mr. Innes had declared it to be, so, to stop the performance on account of Evelyn’s viola da gamba, and then to hear her play worse than he had ever heard her play before, was very disappointing.

“What is the matter?  Aren’t you well?  I never heard you play so badly.”

He hoped that she would play better in the next piece, and he besought her with a look before he signed to the players to begin.  She resolved not to think of Owen, and she played so well that the next piece was applauded.  Except for her father’s sake she cared very little how she played; she tried to play well to please him, but she was anxious to sing well—­she was singing for herself and for Owen, which was the same thing—­and she sang beautifully in the King’s madrigal and the two songs accompanied by the lute—­“I loathe what I did love,” and “My lytell pretty one,” both anonymous, composed in 1520, and discovered by Mr. Innes in the British Museum.  The musical interest of these two songs was slight, and Owen reflected that all Mr. Innes’s discoveries at the British Museum were not of equal importance.  But she had sung divinely, and he thought how he should praise her at the end of the concert.