“We were at the Academy all the morning, and mamma is not a bit tired.  Why has not Mr. Lavender anything in the Academy?  Oh, I forgot” she added, with a smile.  “Of course, he has been very much engaged.  But now I suppose he will settle down to work.”

Sheila wished that this fragile-looking girl would not so continually refer to her husband; but how was any one to find fault with her when she put a little air of plaintiveness into the ordinarily cold gray eyes, and looked at her small hand as much as to say, “The fingers there are very small, and even whiter than the glove that covers them.  They are the fingers of a child, who ought to be petted.”

Then the men came in from the dining-room.  Lavender looked round to see where Sheila was—­perhaps with a trifle of disappointment that she was not the most prominent figure there.  Had he expected to find all the women surrounding her and admiring her, and all the men going up to pay court to her?  Sheila was seated near a small table, and Mrs. Lorraine was showing her something.  She was just like anybody else.  If she was a wonderful sea-princess who had come into a new world, no one seemed to observe her.  The only thing that distinguished her from the women around her was her freshness of color and the unusual combination of black eyelashes and dark blue eyes.  Lavender had arranged that Sheila’s first appearance in public should be at a very quiet little dinner-party, but even here she failed to create any profound impression.  She was, as he had to confess to himself again, just like anybody else.

He went over to where Mrs. Lorraine was, and sat down beside her.  Sheila, remembering his injunctions, felt bound to leave him there; and as she rose to speak to Mrs. Kavanagh, who was standing by, that lady came and begged her to sing a Highland song.  By this time Lavender had succeeded in interesting his companion about something or other, and neither of them noticed that Sheila had gone to the piano, attended by the young politician who had taken her in to dinner.  Nor did they interrupt their talk merely because some one played a few bars of prelude.  But what was this that suddenly startled Lavender to the heart, causing him to look up with surprise?  He had not heard the air since he was in Borva, and when Sheila sang

  Hark, hark! the horn
  On mountain-breezes borne! 
  Awake, it is morn,
      Awake, Monaltrie!—­

all sorts of reminiscences came rushing in upon him.  How often had he heard that wild story of Monaltrie’s flight sung out in the small chamber over the sea, with a sound of the waves outside and a scent of sea-weed coming in at the door and the windows!  It was from the shores of Borva that young Monaltrie must have fled.  It must have been in Borva that his sweetheart sat in her bower and sang, the burden of all her singing being “Return, Monaltrie!” And then, as Sheila sang now, making the monotonous and plaintive air wild and strange—­