music and its standards, as all people become nowadays who live in
a highly cultivated society, and he knew enough at any rate to see
that what he was listening to was remarkable, was out of the common
range. Still more evident was this, when from the humorous piece
with which the sisters led off--a dance of clowns, but clowns of
Arcady--they slid into a delicate rippling _chant d'amour_, the
long-drawn notes of the violin rising and falling on the piano
accompaniment with an exquisite plaintiveness. Where did a _fillette_,
unformed, inexperienced, win the secret of so much eloquence--only
from the natural dreams of a girl's heart as to 'the lovers waiting
in the hidden years?'

But when the music ceased, Elsmere, after a hearty clap that set
the room applauding likewise, turned not to the musician but the
figure beside Mrs. Leyburn, the sister who had sat listening with
an impassiveness, a sort of gentle remoteness of look which had
piqued his curiosity. The mother meanwhile was drinking in the
compliments of Dr. Baker.

'Excellent!' cried Elsmere. 'How in the name of fortune, Miss
Leyburn, if I may ask, has your sister managed to get on so far in
this remote place?'

'She goes to Manchester every year to some relations we have there,'
said Catherine quietly; 'I believe she has been very well taught.'

'But surely,' he said warmly, 'it is more than teaching--more even
than talent--there is something like genius in it?'

She did not answer very readily.