ins. Instead of the
soft twilight obscurity, in which we used to sit, the bright radiant
glow of lamplight now dazzled my eyes. All was changed--indoors and
out all was changed.

Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore sat down together at the card-table--Mrs.
Vesey took her customary chair. There was no restraint on the
disposal of THEIR evening, and I felt the restraint on the disposal of
mine all the more painfully from observing it. I saw Miss Fairlie
lingering near the music-stand. The time had been when I might have
joined her there. I waited irresolutely--I knew neither where to go
nor what to do next. She cast one quick glance at me, took a piece of
music suddenly from the stand, and came towards me of her own accord.

"Shall I play some of those little melodies of Mozart's which you used
to like so much?" she asked, opening the music nervously, and looking
down at it while she spoke.

Before I could thank her she hastened to the piano. The chair near it,
which I had always been accustomed to occupy, stood empty. She struck
a few chords--then glanced round at me--then looked back again at her
music.

"Won't you take your old place?" she said, speaking very abruptly and
in very low tones.

"I may take it on the last night," I answered.

She did not reply--she kept her attention riveted on the music--music
which she knew by memory, which she had played over and over again, in
former times, without the book. I only knew that she had heard me, I
only knew that she was aware of my being close to her, by seeing the
red spot on the cheek that was nearest to me fade out, and the face
grow pale all over.

"I am very sorry you are going," she said, her voice almost sinking to
a whisper, her eyes looking more and more intently at the music, her
fingers flying over the keys of the piano with a strange feverish
energy which I had never noticed in her before.

"I shall remember those kind words, Miss Fairlie, long after to-morrow
has come and gone."

The paleness grew whiter on her face, and she turned it farther away
from me.

"Don't speak of to-morrow," she said. "Let the music speak to us of
to-night, in a happier language than ours."

Her lips trembled--a faint sigh fluttered from them, which she tried
vainly to suppress. Her fingers wavered on the piano--she struck a
false note, confused herself in trying to set it right, and dropped her
hands angrily on her lap. Miss Halcombe and Mr. Gilmore looked up