When he awoke again the fire had burned low and the flames of the candles
were licking the rims of the Sheffield sticks. Sluggishly he rose,
yawned, went his nightly round of door-locks and window-fastenings, and
passed into his bedroom. Soon he slept soundly.

But a curious little sequel followed on the morrow. Mrs. Barrett usually
tapped, not at his door, but at the wooden wall beyond which lay Oleron's
bed; and then Oleron rose, put on his dressing-gown, and admitted her. He
was not conscious that as he did so that morning he hummed an air; but
Mrs. Barrett lingered with her hand on the door-knob and her face a
little averted and smiling.

"De-ar me!" her soft falsetto rose. "But that will be a very o-ald tune,
Mr. Oleron! I will not have heard it this for-ty years!"

"What tune?" Oleron asked.

"The tune, indeed, that you was humming, sir."

Oleron had his thumb in the flap of a letter. It remained there.

"_I_ was humming?... Sing it, Mrs. Barrett."

Mrs. Barrett prut-prutted.

"I have no voice for singing, Mr. Oleron; it was Ann Pugh was the singer
of our family; but the tune will be very o-ald, and it is called 'The
Beckoning Fair One.'"