exceedingly pretty, and Noel was too much an artist
not to be alive to it, but as he looked at the fair, unwritten page her
face represented to him, he was seeing, in his mind's eye, that far
lovelier face on which the spiritualizing, beautifying hand of sorrow
had been laid. He had not gone thus far on his journey of life without
deep suffering himself, and the heart that had suffered was the one to
which he felt his true kinship. At the close of the dinner the whole
party adjourned to the opera, Noel alone excusing himself, at the door
of the _debutante's_ carriage, on the plea of an important engagement.
The lovely bud looked vexed and disappointed, but Noel knew his place
at her side would be abundantly filled, and got himself away with all
the haste decorum permitted.

When he rang at Mrs. Murray's door Harriet ushered him into the little
drawing-room where Christine was seated at the piano singing. Mrs.
Murray was not present. Motioning the servant not to announce him he
took his position behind a screen, where he could see and hear without
being seen. Christine had heard neither his ring nor his entrance, so
she was utterly unconscious of any presence but her own, and indeed most
probably not of that, for there was a strange abandonment to sway of the
song as her voice, rich and full and deep, sang softly:

"I am weary with rowing, with rowing,
Let me drift adown with the stream.
I am weary with rowing, with rowing,
Let me lay me down and dream."

Noel knew the little song well, and in his fancy the full, pathetic
voice gave it a sound and meaning that his longing heart desired to hear
in it. The thrilling voice sang on, low and deep and full:

"The stream in its flowing, its flowing,
Shall bear us adown to the sea.
I am weary with rowing, with rowing,
I yield me to love and to thee.
I can struggle no longer, no longer,
Here in thine arms let me lie,
In thine arms which are stronger, are stronger
Than all on the earth, let me die."

The sweet voice trembled as the song came to an end, and Christine, with
a swift, impulsive movement, put her elbows on the keys of the piano,
making a harsh discord of sound, and dropped her face in her hands. She
remained so, without moving, for several minutes, while Noel, thrilling
in all his senses to the power of that subtly sweet song, kept also
profoundly still. He felt it was his only