Her lips parted, and a pure note, crystal clear, and of such silvery softness as to seem more supernatural than human, floated upward on the silence.  Maryllia caught her breath, and listened with a quickly beating heart,—­she knew that the voice of this child whom she had rescued from a life of misery, was a world’s marvel.

    “Le douce printemps fait naitre,—­
     Autant d’amours que de fleurs;
     Tremblez, tremblez, jeunes coeurs! 
     Des qu’il commence a paraitre
     Il faut cesser les froideurs.”

Here with a sudden brilliant roulade the singer ran up the scale to the C in alt, and there paused with a trill as delicious and full as the warble of a nightingale.

    “Mais ce qu’il a de douceurs
     Vous coutera cher peut-etre! 
     Tremblez, tremblez jeunes coeurs,
     Le douce printemps fait naitre,
     Autant d’amours que de fleurs!”

She ceased.  The air, broken into delicate vibrations, carried the lovely sounds rhythmically outward, onward and into unechoing distance.

She turned and looked at Maryllia—­then smiled.

“I see you are pleased,”—­she said.

“Pleased!  Cicely, I don’t believe anyone was ever born into the world to sing as you sing!”

Cicely looked quaintly meditative.

“Well, I don’t know about that!  You see there have been several millions of folks born into the world, and there may have been just one naturally created singer among them!” She laughed, and touched a chord on the spinet.  “The old French song exactly suits this old French instrument.  I see it is an ancient thing of Paris.  Gigue says I have improved—­but he will never admit much, as you know.  He has forbidden me to touch the C in alt, and I did it just now.  I cannot help it sometimes—­it comes so easy.  But you must scold me, Maryllia darling, when you hear me taking it,—­I don’t want to strain the vocal cords, and I always forget I’m only fourteen; I feel—­oh! ever so much older!—­ages old, in fact!” She sighed, and stretched her arms up above her head.  “What a perfect room this is to sing in!  What a perfect house!—­and what a perfect angel you are to have me with you!”

Her eyes filled with sudden tears of emotion, but she quickly blinked them away.

“Et ce cher Roxmouth?” she queried, suddenly, glancing appreciatively at the rippling gold-brown lights and shades of her friend’s hair, the delicate hues of her complexion, and the grace of her form—­“Has he been to see you in this idyllic retreat?”

Maryllia gave a slight gesture of wearied impatience.

“Certainly not!  How can you ask such a question, Cicely!  I left my aunt on purpose to get rid of him once and for all.  And he knows it;—­yet he has written to me every two days regularly since I came here!”

“Helas!—­ce cher Roxmouth!” murmured Cicely, with a languid gesture imitative of the ‘society manner’ of Mrs. Fred Vancourt,—­“Parfait gentilhomme au bout des ongles!”