“Very well, child; it shall be as you wish.  I hope, though, you did not ask mademoiselle to sing; you must not do that.”

“No, no, indeed I did not, mamma.  She offered to sing for me.”

A curious friendship had sprung up last winter in London between Elsie Severn and the famous prima donna.  They had met one afternoon at a reception, and been mutually pleased with each other.  There was something about the frank outspoken manner of the young girl which appealed to Mademoiselle Laurentia, wearied as she was with the conventional adulation, in reality amounting to so little, of the world in which she moved.

“Now, mademoiselle,” said Elsie, “I am ready.  It is so good of you to sing for me.”

“My child, you know I love to give you pleasure,” she replied, stroking the girl’s fair hair caressingly.  “Listen!  I will sing for you a song I have not sung for years—­ah! so many, many years.”

She began softly, slowly, a Canadian boat-song, heard often on the raftsman’s barge or habitant’s canoe, on the Ottawa or great St. Lawrence—­a national song, with its quaint monotonous melody and simple pathetic words.

And the voice which rendered so effectively the technical difficulties of Wagner and Gounod sang this simple air with a pathos and feeling all its own: 

  “A la claire fontaine
     M’en allant promener,
   J’ai trouve l’eau si belle
     Que je me suis baigne. 
   Il y a longtemps que je t’aime
     Jamais je ne t’oublierai. 
   Il y a longtemps que je t’aime
     Jamais je ne t’oublierai.”

“Why, McAllister, whatever is the matter with you?  Have you seen a ghost?  You are as white as a sheet.  Are you ill?”

“No, no, I’m not ill.  Do be quiet, Jack.  What a row you’re making!  I do feel a little seedy; it’s these horrid cigars of yours.”

“Nonsense!” retorted Jack Severn.  “You couldn’t get better ones; it isn’t that.  I believe you’ve seen the ghost of old Lady Severn, my great-grandmother, walking with her head in her hands.  This is the time of year she always turns up.  It must be the spring house-cleaning that disturbs her rest. Did you see her?  I’ve sat up night after night to try and catch sight of the old lady, and I’ve always missed her.  Where was she?  Tell me quickly.  I’ll run after her.”

“I didn’t see your great-grandmother or anybody else, so do stop chattering, Jack, and for goodness’ sake let me hear that song,” said McAllister irritably.

“Well, well,” muttered Jack Severn to himself, “I never saw The McAllister in such a temper before.  As a rule, he is too lazy to be angry at anything, I really think he must be ill.”

Mademoiselle Laurentia finished singing.  The McAllister’s thoughts by this time were far away on the pebbly beach at Father Point, where the tide was coming in rippling over the stones, and his memory had gone back to an evening ten years ago.  He was again standing beside a huge boulder, on which sat a girl in a pink cotton frock.  She was singing in a sweet low voice: