something about Rossini's music, Miss Wray?"

"I tell you?" Her light silvery laugh rang out. "And Captain Forsythe
has only been telling me--all of us--that you were one of the best
informed men he had ever met."

"You see how wrong he was!"

"Quite!" The blue eyes regarded him sidewise. He, the keen, strong man,
so assured, so invincible in the court room, sat most humbly by her
side, confessing his ignorance, want of knowledge about something every
school-girl is mistress of! "Or, perhaps, it is because your world is so
different from mine! Music, laughter, the traditions of Italian _bel
canto_, you have no room for them, they are too light, too trifling. You
are above them," poising her fair head a little higher.

"Perhaps they have been above me," he answered, his tone unconsciously
taking an accent of gaiety from the lightness of hers.

The abrupt appearance of the musicians and the dissonances attendant on
tuning, interrupted her response; Steele rose and was about to take his
departure, when Sir Charles intervened.

"Why don't you stay?" he asked, with true colonial heartiness. "Plenty
of room! Unless you've a better place! Two vacant chairs!"

John Steele looked around; he saw three vacant chairs and took one, a
little aside and slightly behind the young girl, while the governor's
wife, who had moved from the front at the conclusion of the previous
act, now returned to her place, next her niece. During the act, some one