‘I find I’ve got a little cold.  Would you mind singing it alone?’

So Thyrza sang the song through.  A moment or two of quietness followed.

‘Now I think you’ll soon know it, children,’ said Mrs. Mapper.  ’Lizzie Smith, I see you’ve got it already.  Miss Trent will be kind enough to sing the first verse again; you sing with her, Lizzie—­ and you too, Mary.  That’s a clever girl!  Now we shall get on.’

The practising went on till all were able to join in fairly well.  After that, Mrs. Mapper played the favourite dance tunes, and the children danced merrily.  Whilst they were so enjoying themselves, Mrs. Ormonde came into the room.  She had dined, and wanted Thyrza to come and sit with her, for she was alone.  But first she had five minutes of real laughter and play with the children.  They loved her, every one of them, and clung to her desperately when she said sue could stay no longer.

‘Good-bye!’ she said, waving her hand at the door.

‘No, no!’ cried several voices.  ’There’s ‘good-night’ yet, Mrs. Ormonde!’

‘Why, of course there is,’ she laughed; ’but that’s no reason why I shouldn’t say good-bye.’

She took Thyrza’s hand and led her down.

‘You shall have some supper with me afterwards,’ she said ’The little ones have theirs now; but it’s too early for you.’

If the drawing-room had been a marvel to Thyrza in the daylight, it was yet more so now that she entered it and found two delicately shaded lamps giving a rich uncertainty to all the beautiful forms of furniture and ornaments.  She had thought the Grails’ parlour luxurious.  And the dear old easy-chair, now so familiar to her, how humble it was compared with this in which Mrs. Ormonde seated her!  These wonders caused her no envy or uneasy desire.  In looking at a glorious altarpiece, one does not feel unhappy because one cannot carry it off from the church and hang it up at home.  Thyrza’s mood was purely of admiration, and of joy in being deemed worthy to visit such scenes.  And all the time she kept saying to herself, ’Another whole day!  I shall be by the sea again tomorrow!  I shall sleep and wake close by the sea!’

Presently Mrs. Ormonde had to absent herself for a few minutes.

’You heard what the children said about ‘good-night.’  I always go and see them as soon as they are tucked up in bed.  I don’t think they’d sleep if I missed.’

The kind office over, she spoke with Mrs. Mapper about the evening’s singing.

‘Did you know,’ the latter asked, ‘what a voice Miss Trent has?’

‘She sings?  I didn’t know.’

’I was so delighted that I had to stop singing myself.  I’m sure it’s a wonderful voice.’

‘Indeed!  I must ask her to sing to me.’

She found Thyrza turning over the leaves of a volume of photographs.  Without speaking, she sat down at the piano, and began to play gently the air of ‘Annie Laurie.’  Thyrza looked up, and then came nearer.