on
filled her ears. So had ended a dream, she thought. She would stand at
the window listening to street-organs, whose hideous discord and
clippings and drawls did not madden her, and whose suggestion of a lovely
tune rolled out no golden land to her. That treasure of her voice, to
which no one in the house made allusion, became indeed a buried treasure.

In the South-western suburb where the Marinis lived, plots of foliage
were to be seen, and there were lanes not so black but that they showed
the hues of the season. These led to the parks and to noble gardens.
Emilia daily went out to keep the dying colours of the year in view, and
walked to get among the trees, where, with Madame attendant on her, she
sat counting the leaves as each one curved, and slid, and spun to earth,
or on a gust of air hosts went aloft; but it always ended in their coming
down; Emilia verified that fact repeatedly. However high they flew, the
ground awaited them. Madame entertained her with talk of Italy, and
Tuscan wine, and Lombard bread, and Turin chocolate. Marini never alluded
to his sufferings for the loss of these cruelly interdicted dainties,
never! But Madame knew how his exile affected him. And in England the
sums one paid for everything! "One fancies one pays for breath," said
Madame, shivering.

One day the ex-organist of Hillford Church passed before them. Emilia let
him go. The day following he passed again, but turned at the end of the
alley and simulated astonishment at the appearance of Emilia, as he
neared her. They shook hands and talked, while Madame zealously eyed any
chance person promenading the neighbourhood. She wrote for instructions
concerning this gentleman calling himself Sir Purcell Barrett, and
receiving them, she permitted Emilia to invite him to their house. "He is
an Englishman under a rope, ready for heaven," Madame described him to
her husband, who, though more at heart with Englishmen, could not but
admit that this one wore a look that appeared as a prognostication of
sadness.

Sir Purcell informed Emilia of his accession to title; and in reply to
her "Are you not glad?" smiled and said that a mockery could scarcely
make him glad; indicating nevertheless how feeble the note of poverty was
in his grand scale of sorrow. He came to the house and met them in the
gardens frequently. With some perversity he would analyze to herself
Emilia's spirit of hope, partly perhaps for the sake of probing to what
sort of