still remained the same.  It apostrophized the shells of ocean; it tenderly described the three great crises of a particular heroine’s life by mentioning her head-dress; it told of how the lover of Pretty Jane would have her meet him in the evening.  Well, all the world was content to accept this conventional phraseology, and behind the paraphernalia of “enchanted moon-beams” and “fondest glances” and “adoring sighs” perceived and loved the sentiment that could find no simpler utterance.  Some of us, hearing the half-forgotten songs again, suddenly forget the odd language, and the old pathos springs up again, as fresh as in the days when our first love had just come home from her boarding-school; while others, who have no old-standing acquaintance with these memorable songs, have somehow got attracted to them by the mere quaintness of their speech and the simplicity of their airs.  Master Harry Trelyon was no great critic of music.  When Wenna Rosewarne sang that night “She wore a wreath of roses,” he fancied he had never listened to anything so pathetic.  When she sang “Meet me by moonlight alone,” he was delighted with the spirit and half-humorous, half-tender grace of the composition.  As she sang “When other lips and other hearts,” it seemed to him that there were no songs like the old-fashioned songs, and that the people who wrote those ballads were more frank and simple and touching in their speech than writers now-a-days.  Somehow, he began to think of the drawing-rooms of a former generation, and of the pictures of herself his grandmother had drawn for him many a time.  Had she a high waist to that white silk dress in which she ran away to Gretna? and did she have ostrich feathers on her head?  Anyhow, he entirely believed what she had told him of the men of that generation.  They were capable of doing daring things for the sake of a sweetheart.  Of course his grandfather had done boldly and well in whirling the girl off to the Scottish borders, for who could tell what might have befallen her among ill-natured relatives and persecuted suitors?

Wenna Rosewarne was singing “We met, ’twas in a crowd, and I thought he would shun me.”  It is the song of a girl (must one explain so much in these later days?) who is in love with one man, and is induced to marry another:  she meets the former, and her heart is filled with shame and anguish and remorse.  As Wenna sang the song it seemed to this young man that there was an unusual pathos in her voice; and he was so carried away by the earnestness of her singing that his heart swelled and rose up within him, and he felt himself ready to declare that such should not be her fate.  This man who was coming back to marry her—­was there no one ready to meet him and challenge his atrocious claim?  Then the song ended, and with a sudden disappointment Trelyon recollected that he at least had no business to interfere.  What right had he to think of saving her?

He had been idly turning over some volumes on the table.  At last he came to a Prayer-book of considerable size and elegance of binding.  Carelessly looking at the fly-leaf, he saw that it was a present to Wenna Rosewarne, “with the very dearest love of her sister Mabyn.”  He passed his hand over the leaves, not noticing what he was doing.  Suddenly he saw something which did effectually startle him into attention.