But she did care for it.  Nothing, nobody, could quench the artist nature which, the instant the heavy weight of sorrow was taken away, sprang up like a living fountain in this girl’s soul.  She sang, quite alone in the room, but with such a keen delight, such a perfect absorption of enjoyment, that she never noticed her husband’s entrance till he had stood for some minutes behind her chair.  When he touched her she started, then smiled.

“Oh, it is only you!”

“Only me.  Did I trouble you?”

“Oh no; was I not troubling you?”

“How, my dear?”

Christian could not tell.  Anyhow she found it impossible to explain, except that she had fancied he did not care for music.

“Perhaps I do, perhaps I don’t.  But I care for you. Tell me,” he sat down and took her hand, “does not Arthur’s ‘bird’ sometimes feel a little like a bird in a cage?  Do you not wish you lived in the world—­in London, where you could go to concerts and balls, instead of being shut up in a dull college with an old bookworm like me?”

“Dr. Grey!  Papa!”

“Don’t look hurt, my darling.  But confess; isn’t it sometimes so?”

“No! a thousand times no!  Who has been putting such things into your head, for they never would come of themselves?  It is wicked—­wicked, and you should not heed them.”

The tears burst from her eyes, to her husband’s undisguised astonishment.  He appeared so exceedingly grieved that she controlled herself as soon as she could, for his sake.

“I did not mean to be naughty.  But you should remember I am still only a girl—­a poor, helpless, half-formed girl, who never had any body to teach her any thing, who is trying so hard to be good, only they will not let me!”

“Who do you mean by they?”

No, he evidently had not the slightest idea how bitter was the daily household struggle, the petty guerilla warfare which she had to bear.  And perhaps it was as well he should not.  She would fight her own battles; she was strong enough now.  It was a step-by-step advance, and all through an enemy’s country.  Still, she had advanced, and might go on to the end, if she only had strength and patience.

“Hush!  I hear Miss Gascoigne at the door.  Please go and speak to her.  Don’t let her see I have been crying.”

Of this, happily, there was little fear, Miss Gascoigne being too much absorbed in her own appearance, which really was very fine.  Her black satin rustled, her black lace fell airily, and her whole figure was that of a handsome, well-preserved, middle-aged gentlewoman.  So pleased was she with herself that she was pleasant to every one else; and when, half an hour after, Dr. Grey entered the reception-rooms of St. Mary’s Lodge with his wife on one arm and his sister on the other, any spectator would have said, how very nice they all looked; what a fortunate man he was, and what a happy family must be the family at Saint Bede’s.