gray; but Dermott McDermott was firm as to their being blue until the day she visited him about the railroad business, when he afterward described them “as black as chaos,” adding a word or two about her deil’s temper as well.  The truth was that the color of them changed with her emotions, but the wistfulness of them remained ever the same.  Dermott, in some lines he wrote of her in Paris, described them as “corn-flowers in a mist filled with the poetry and passion of a great and misunderstood people,” and though “over-poetic,” as he himself said afterward, “the thought was none so bad.”

Suddenly the languor seemed to leave her, and she stood alert, chin drawn in, hands clasped before her, and began the recitative to the “Ah!  Fors e lui.”  Twice she stopped abruptly, taking a tone a second time, listening as she did so, her head, birdlike, on one side with a concentrated attention.  After the last low note, which was round and low like an organ tone, she resumed her old position with arms outstretched upon the fence.

As Frank came up the path their eyes met, and he removed his hat, holding it at his side, as one who did not intend to resume it.  Standing thus, he bore himself, if one might use the word of a man, with a certain sweetness, an entire seeming self-forgetfulness, as though the one to whom he spoke occupied his entire thought.

“It is Miss Dulany?” he inquired, with a smile which seemed to ask pardon for his temerity.

“I am Katrine Dulany,” the girl answered, gravely, for the readjustment from the music and the silence was not easily made.

“I was fortunate enough to hear you sing.  It almost made me forget to say that I am Mr. Ravenel.”

“I know,” Katrine answered.  “The plantation has expected your coming.”

A silence followed, during which, with no embarrassment, she retained her position, waiting for him to pass.  The indifference of it pleased him.

“I was going to see your father at the lodge.  The roads are unfamiliar, and the path, after two years’ absence, a bit lonely.”  The sadness which accompanied the words was honest, but it seemed for some more personal sorrow than it was.

“My father is not well,” Katrine said, hastily.  “I am afraid you cannot see him, Mr. Ravenel.  May I ask him to go to you to-morrow instead?” There was entreaty in her voice, and Frank knew the truth on an instant.

“I cannot have you carrying messages for me.”

“Seeing that I offered myself”—­she suggested, with a smile.

“—­is no reason that I should trespass on your kindness, so I shall carry my message myself.”  This quite firmly.

“I will sing again if you stay.”  She looked at him through her long lashes without turning her head.  “You see,” she added, “I have made up my mind.”

“It’s a premium on discourtesy,” he answered, “but I yield.”

Near the place where she stood there was a fallen log, and he seated himself upon it, placing his hat on the ground as though for a continued stay, regarding her curiously.