The Misses Challoner looked politely surprised; their father’s shrewd face wore an expression of grim contentment.

“Don’t cross it, ma’am,” he said emphatically, “unless you have a special desire to be miserable.  If you want to know how Christians love one another and how to be made limply and uselessly wretched, spend a Sunday in London.”

“I think I will not try the experiment, Mr. Challoner,” returned Zara gaily.  “Life is short, and I prefer to enjoy it.”

“Say,” interrupted Mrs. Challoner, turning to me at this juncture, “now you are feeling so well, would it be asking you too much to play us a piece of your own improvising?”

I glanced at the grand piano, which occupied a corner of the salon where we sat, and hesitated.  But at a slight nod from Zara, I rose, drew off my gloves, and seated myself at the instrument.  Passing my hands lightly over the keys, I wandered through a few running passages; and as I did so, murmured a brief petition to my aerial friend Aeon.  Scarcely had I done this, when a flood of music seemed to rush to my brain and thence to my fingers, and I played, hardly knowing what I played, but merely absorbed in trying to give utterance to the sounds which were falling softly upon my inner sense of hearing like drops of summer rain on a thirsty soil.  I was just aware that I was threading the labyrinth of a minor key, and that the result was a network of delicate and tender melody reminding me of Heinrich Heine’s words: 

“Lady, did you not hear the nightingale sing?  A beautiful silken voice—­a web of happy notes—­and my soul was taken in its meshes, and strangled and tortured thereby.”

A few minutes, and the inner voice that conversed with me so sweetly, died away into silence, and at the same time my fingers found their way to the closing chord.  As one awaking from a dream, I looked up.  The little group of friendly listeners were rapt in the deepest attention; and when I ceased, a murmur of admiration broke from them all, while Zara’s eyes glistened with sympathetic tears.

“How can you do it?” asked Mrs. Challoner in good-natured amazement.  “It seems to me impossible to compose like that while seated at the piano, and without taking previous thought!”

“It is not my doing,” I began; “it seems to come to me from—­”

But I was checked by a look from Zara, that gently warned me not to hastily betray the secret of my spiritual communion with the unseen sources of harmony.  So I smiled and said no more.  Inwardly I was full of a great rejoicing, for I knew that however well I had played in past days, it was nothing compared to the vigour and ease which were now given to me—­a sort of unlocking of the storehouse of music, with freedom to take my choice of all its vast treasures.

“Well, it’s what we call inspiration,” said Mr. Challoner, giving my hand a friendly grasp; “and wherever it comes from, it must be a great happiness to yourself as well as to others.”