on the chorus in perfect accord, the singers
thought they had never sung so well before, and each attributed it to
the excellent time of the other. Nero and another person listened at the
aperture of the folding-doors: Nero, who was musical, going through a
show of vehement applause, and throwing himself about in a manner that
would have made his fortune as an Ethiopian minstrel.

Other songs followed in rapid succession; and when the Captain sang
"Annie Lawrie," _con espressione_, accompanying himself on the piano
with one hand, Barbara exclaimed, with a frank burst of genuine
admiration,--

"Oh, but you sang that superbly!"

She had quite forgotten her anxiety about her father's return.

Then they talked of the popular composers; and from music their
conversation glanced on literature; and from literature the Captain
ventured on the dangerous ground of politics.

"Are you incorrigibly a Rebel?" he asked.

Barbara looked down. She feared that any confession of change in her
notions would seem too much like insincerity.

"Now I'm going to lecture you," he continued. "Are you not rejoiced that
Maryland is a Free State? that no longer on this soil a man has power to
rob a fellow-man of his labor, and to shoot him down, if he lifts a hand
in opposition to brutal oppression? Does not your generous heart tell
you that the system under which such injustice is organized is wrong,
unchristian, devilish? Are we not well rid of the curse?"

Barbara looked up, and responded in a hearty, emphatic _Yes_.

"But," she added, "my conversion is recent. And who do you suppose
converted me?"

"I cannot imagine."

Here a door was thrown open, and Mr. Dinwiddie entered. The perfidious
man had been listening. Captain Penrose glanced guiltily at the clock,
and saw, to his consternation, that two hours had somehow unaccountably
slipped away.

"I have been a loiterer, you see, Mr. Dinwiddie," he said; "but the
fault is your daughter's. I will now take my leave."

"We shall be happy to see you again," said Barbara, glancing assent to a
nod from her father.

"Yes, Captain Penrose," said Dinwiddie, "I hope you'll not drop our
acquaintance, notwithstanding the circumstances under which it was
made."

"I shall esteem any circumstances fortunate," replied the Captain, "that
have given me so agreeable a visit"; and, bowing, he left the room, and
Barbara rang the bell for Nero to open the outer door.

"Saved! saved!" cried Dinwiddi