oked Marion steadily
in the eyes for a moment and then rose. It cost her something to do this
thing, for while she had often talked much and long with Richard about
that old life, it now seemed as if she were to sing it to one who would
not quite understand why she should sing it at all, or what was her real
attitude towards her past--that she looked upon it from the infinite
distance of affectionate pity, knowledge, and indescribable change, and
yet loved the inspiring atmosphere and mystery of that lonely North,
which once in the veins never leaves it--never. Would he understand that
she was feeling, not the common detail of the lodge and the camp-fire
and the Company's post, but the deep spirit of Nature, filtering through
the senses in a thousand ways--the wild ducks' flight, the sweet smell
of the balsam, the exquisite gallop of the deer, the powder of the
frost, the sun and snow and blue plains of water, the thrilling eternity
of plain and the splendid steps of the hills, which led away by stair
and entresol to the Kimash Hills, the Hills of the Mighty Men?

She did not know what he would think, and again on second thought she
determined to make him, by this song, contrast her as she was when
he married her, and now--how she herself could look upon that past
unabashed, speak of it without blushing, sing of it with pride, having
reached a point where she could look down and say: "This was the way by
which I came."

She rose, and was accompanied to the piano by General Armour, Frank
admiring her soft, springing steps, her figure so girlish and lissom.
She paused for a little before she began. Her eyes showed for a moment
over the piano, deep, burning, in-looking; then they veiled; her fingers
touched the keys, wandered over them in a few strange, soft chords,
paused, wandered again, more firmly and very intimately, and then she
sang. Her voice was a good contralto, well balanced, true, of no great
range, but within its compass melodious, and having some inexpressible
charm of temperament. Frank did not need to strain his ears to hear the
words; every one came clear, searching, delicately valued:

"In the flash of the singing dawn,
At the door of the Great One,
The joy of his lodge knelt down,
Knelt down, and her hair in the sun
Shone like showering dust,
And her eyes were as eyes of the fawn.
And she cried to her lord,
'O my lord, O my life,