But there was yet another singer, whose performance was attended with rather more display.  It was preluded by a good deal of whispering and nodding of heads.  Lady Essendine posed as a charitable person, always anxious to do good, and this singer was a protegee of hers—­an interesting but unfortunate foreigner in very reduced circumstances, whom she had discovered by accident, and to whom she was most anxious to give a helping hand.

“A sweet creature,” she had said quite audibly that evening, although the object of her remarks was at her elbow.  “A most engaging person; poor thing, when I found her she was almost destitute.  Wasn’t it sad?”

“Quite pretty, too,” her friends had remarked, also ignoring the near neighbourhood of the singer.

It did not seem to matter much.  The stranger sat there calmly, proudly unconscious of all that was said about her.  Pretty!—­the epithet was well within the mark.  Beautiful, rather—­magnificently, splendidly beautiful, with a noble presence and almost queenly air.  Her small, exquisitely-proportioned head, crowned with a coronet of deep chestnut hair, was well poised upon a long, slender neck; she had a refined, aristocratic face, with clear-cut features, a well-shaped, aquiline nose, with slender nostrils; a perfect mouth, great lustrous dark eyes, with brows and lashes rather darker than her hair.  Her teeth were perfect—­perhaps she knew it, for her lower lip hung down a little, constantly displaying their pearly whiteness, and adding somewhat to the decided outline of the firm well-rounded chin.

Seated, her beauty claimed attention; but her appearance was still more attractive when she stood up and moved across the room, to take her seat at the piano.  Her figure was tall and commanding, full, yet faultless in outline, as that of one in the prime of ripe, rich womanhood, and its perfect proportions were fully set off by her close-fitting but perfectly plain black dress.

A little hum of approval greeted her from this well-bred audience as she sat down and swept her fingers with a flourish over the keys.  Then, without further prelude, she sang a little French song in a pleasing, musical voice, without much compass, but well trained; before the applause ended she broke into a Spanish ballad, tender and passionate, which gained her still greater success; and thus accepted and approved amidst continual cries of “Brava!” and “Encore!” she was not allowed to leave her seat until she had sung at least a dozen times.

When she arose from the piano Lady Essendine went up to her, patronising and gracious.

“Oh! thank you so much.  I don’t know when I have heard anything so charming.”

Other ladies followed suit, and, amidst the general cries of approval, the beautiful singer was engaged a dozen deep to sing at other great houses in the town.

Presently they pressed her to perform again.  Was she not paid for it?  No one, Lady Essendine least of all, thought for one moment of her protegee’s fatigue, and the poor singer might have worked on till she fainted from exhaustion had not the son of the house interposed.