And when Natalie Lind, coming to this air, sung in a low contralto voice an only half-suggested second, it seemed to those in the room that two women were singing—­the one with a voice low and rich and penetrating, the other voice clear and sweet like the singing of a young girl. “Die Luft ist kuhl und es dunkelt, und ruhig fliesset der Rhein.” Was it, indeed, Kathchen and her mother?  Were they far away in the beautiful pine-land, with the quiet evening shining red over the green woods, and darkness coming over the pale streams in the hollows?  When Natalie Lind ceased, the elder of the two guests murmured to himself, “Wonderful! wonderful!” The other did not speak at all.

She rested her hands for a moment on the table.

“Natalushka,” said her father, “is that all?”

“I will not be called Natalushka, papa,” said she; but again she bent her hands over the silver strings.

And these brighter and gayer airs now—­surely they are from the laughing and light-hearted South?  Have we not heard them under the cool shade of the olive-trees, with the hot sun blazing on the garden-paths of the Villa Reale; and the children playing; and the band busy with its dancing canzoni, the gay notes drowning the murmur and plash of the fountains near?  Look now!—­far beneath the gray shadow of the olive-trees—­the deep blue band of the sea; and there the double-sailed barca, like a yellow butterfly hovering on the water; and there the large martingallo, bound for the cloud-like island on the horizon.  Are they singing, then, as they speed over the glancing waves?... “O dolce Napoli!  O suol beato!” ... for what can they sing at all, as they leave us, if they do not sing the pretty, tender, tinkling “Santa Lucia?”

    “Venite all’ agile
     Barchetta mia! 
     Santa Lucia! 
     Santa Lucia!”

...  The notes grow fainter and fainter.  Are the tall maidens of Capri already looking out for the swarthy sailors, that these turn no longer to the shores they are leaving?... “O dolce Napoli!  O suol beato!” ...  Fainter and fainter grow the notes on the trembling string, so that you can scarcely tell them from the cool plashing of the fountains ... “Santa Lucia!...  Santa Lucia!"....

“Natalushka,” said her father, laughing, “you must take us to Venice now.”

The young Hungarian girl rose, and put the zither aside.

“It is an amusement for the children,” she said.

She went to the piano, which was open, and took down a piece of music—­it was Kucken’s “Maid of Judah.”  Now, hitherto, George Brand had only heard her murmur a low, harmonious second to one or other of the airs she had been playing; and he was quite unprepared for the passion and fervor which her rich, deep, resonant, contralto voice threw into this wail of indignation and despair.  This was the voice of a woman, not of a girl; and it was with the proud passion of a woman that she seemed to send this cry to Heaven for reparation, and justice, and revenge.  And surely it was not only of the sorrows of the land of Judah she was thinking!—­it was a wider cry—­the cry of the oppressed, and the suffering, and the heart-broken in every clime—­