"You know, dear, what I always love to hear," answered he.

With gentle touch, she drew from the keys a plaintive prelude, which
soon modulated itself into "The Light of other Days." She played and
sang it with so much feeling, that it seemed the voice of memory
floating with softened sadness over the far-off waters of the past.
The tune was familiar to Alfred, but it had never sung itself into his
heart, as now. "I felt as I did in Italy, listening to a vesper-bell
sounding from a distance in the stillness of twilight," said he,
turning toward his host.

"All who hear Rosabella sing notice a bell in her voice," rejoined her
father.

"Undoubtedly it is the voice of a belle," said Mr. Fitzgerald.

Her father, without appearing to notice the commonplace pun, went on
to say, "You don't know, Mr. King, what tricks she can play with her
voice. I call her a musical ventriloquist. If you want to hear the
bell to perfection, ask her to sing 'Toll the bell for lovely Nell.'"

"Do give me that pleasure," said Alfred, persuasively.

She sang the pathetic melody, and with voice and piano imitated to
perfection the slow tolling of a silver-toned bell. After a short
pause, during which she trifled with the keys, while some general
remarks were passing, she turned to Mr. Fitzgerald, who was leaning on
the piano, and said, "What shall I sing for _you_?" It was a simple
question, but it pierced the heart of Alfred King with a strange new