only the cry of some one who is far away about his
sweetheart. It is very simple, both in the words and the music."

And he began to sing, in a voice so rich, so tender and expressive
that Sheila sat amazed and bewildered to hear him. Where had this boy
caught such a trick of passion, or was it really a trick that threw
into his voice all the pathos of a strong man's love and grief? He had
a powerful baritone, of unusual compass and rare sweetness; but it
was not the finely-trained art of his singing, but the passionate
abandonment of it, that thrilled Sheila, and indeed brought tears to
her eyes. How had this mere lad learned all the yearning and despair
of love, that he sang,

Dir bebt die Brust,
Dir schlaegt dies Herz,
Du meine Lust!
O du, mein Schmerz!
Nur an den Winden, den Sternen der Hoeh,
Muss ich verkuenden mein suesses Weh!--

as though his heart were breaking? When he had finished he paused for
a moment or two before leaving the piano, and then he came over to
where Sheila sat. She fancied there was a strange look on his face, as
of one who had been really experiencing the wild emotions of which he
sang; but he said, in his ordinary careful way of speaking, "Madame,
I am sorry I cannot translate the words for you into English. They
are too simple; and they have, what is common in many German songs, a
mingling of the pleasure and the sadness of being in love that would
not read natural perhaps in English. When he says to her that she is
his greatest delight and also his greatest grief, it is quite right in
the German, but not in the English."

"But where have you learned all these things?" she said to him,
talking to him as if he were a mere child, and looking without fear
into his handsome boyish face and fine eyes. "Sit down and tell me.
That is the song of some one whose sweetheart is far away, you said.
But you sang it as if you yourself had some sweetheart far away."

"So I have, madame," he said, seriously: "when I sing the song, I
think of her then, so that I almost cry for her."

"And who is she?" said Sheila gently. "Is she very far away?"

"I do not know," said the lad absently. "I do not know who she is.
Sometimes I think she is a beautiful woman away at St. Petersburg,
singing in the opera-house there. Or I think she has sailed away in a
ship from me."

"But you do not sing about any particular person?" said Sheila, with
an innocent w