door.

'I wish,' said little Barbara, with a beating heart, 'to see Mrs.
Cameron.'

'Pray enter,' returned the lady in tones so deep that she might have
been a gentleman in disguise.

Barbara entered, and the deep-voiced lady closed the door, and led
the way into a scantily furnished parlour, which held, amongst other
objects, a rickety-looking grand piano of ancient make.

'Be seated,' said the deep-voiced lady. 'I am Mrs. Lochleven Cameron.
What are your wishes?'

There was just a suspicion of Dublin in Mrs. Cameron's rich and rolling
tones.

'You prepare pupils for the stage?' said Barbara. Her own clear and
sweet voice sounded strange to her, as though it belonged to somebody
else, but she spoke with outward calm.

'Do you wish to take lessons?' asked the lady.

'If I can afford to pay your terms,' said little Barbara.

'What can you do?' asked Mrs. Cameron with stage solemnity. 'Have you
had any practice? Can you sing?'

'I do not know what I can do,' said Barbara. 'I can sing a little.'

'Let me hear you,' said the deep voice; and the lady, with a regal
gesture, threw open the grand piano.

Barbara drew off her thread gloves and lifted her veil, and then,
sitting down to the piano, sang the piteous ballad of the Four Marys.
Barbara knew nothing of the easy emotions of people of the stage, and
she was almost frightened when, looking up timidly at the conclusion of
the song, she saw that Mrs. Cameron was crying.

'Wait here a time, my dear,' said Mrs. Lochleven Cameron, regally
business-like in spite of her tears, but with the suggestion of Dublin a
trifle more developed in her voice.

She swept from the room, and closed the door behind her; and Barbara,
not yet rid of the feeling that she was somebody else, heard Mrs.
Cameron's voice, somewhat subdued, calling 'Joe.'

'What is it?' asked another deep voice, wherein the influences of Dublin
and the stage together struggled.

'Come down,' said Mrs. Cameron; and in answer to this summons a
solemn footstep was heard upon the stair. Barbara heard the sound of
a whispered conference outside, and then, the door being opened, Mrs.
Cameron ushered in a gentleman tall and lank and sombre, like Mrs.
Cameron, he was very pale, but in his case the pallor of his cheeks was
intensified by the blackness of his hair and the purple-black bloom
upon his chin and upper lip. He looked to Barbara like an undertaker who
mourned the stagnation of trade. To you or me