Every one looked up at the sound of the familiar air. "Hackneyed" as Oliver had declared it to be, it is a song which every audience loves to hear. And Lesley made a pretty picture for the eyes to rest upon while she sang. She was dressed from top to toe in a delicate shade of grey, which suited her fair skin admirably: the grey was relieved by some broad white ribbons and a vest of soft white silk folds, according to the prevailing fashion. A wide-brimmed grey hat, trimmed with drooping grey ostrich feathers, also became her extremely well. Mrs. Romaine noticed that Caspar Brooke looked at her hard for a minute or two, and then sat with his eyes fixed on the ground, his right hand forming a pillow for his left elbow, and his left hand engaged in stroking his big brown beard. What she did not notice was, that Maurice Kenyon had withdrawn himself to a post behind Mr. Brooke's chair, where he could see and not be seen; and that his eyes were riveted upon the fair singer with an expression which betokened more perplexity than admiration.
As Lesley's pure, sweet notes floated out upon the air, there was an instant stir of approbation and interest among the listeners. If the girl had been less intent upon her singing, the unmoved and unmoving stare of these men and women might have made her a little nervous. It was their way of showing attention. The men had even put down their pipes. But Lesley did not see them. She had chosen her song at haphazard, as one which these people were likely to understand; but its painful appropriateness to her own case, perhaps to her mother's case as well, only came home to her as she continued it.
"'Mid pleasures and palaces—though I may roam—
Be it never so humble, there's no place like home.
A charm from the heart seems to hallow it there,
Which, seek through the world, is not met with elsewhere."
If Lesley's voice faltered a little while singing words with which she herself felt forced to disagree, and to which her mother had given the lie by running away from the home Caspar Brooke had provided for her, the hesitation and tremulousness were set down by the hearers as a very pretty bit of artistic skill, which they were not at all slow to appreciate. Mrs. Romaine put up her eye-glass and looked narrowly at the girl during the last few notes.
"How well she sings!" she murmured in Mr. Brooke's ear. "Positively, as if she felt it!"
Caspar Brooke gave a little start, left off handling his beard, and sat up shrugging his shoulders. "A good deal of dramatic talent, I fancy," he observed. But he could say no more, for the people were clapping their hands and stamping with their feet, in their eagerness for another song; and he was obliged to be silent until the tumult abated.
"You must sing again?" said Oliver.
"Must I? Really? But—shall I sing what English people call a sacred piece? A Sunday piece, you know? 'Angels ever bright and fair'—can you play that?"
Oliver could play that. And Lesley sang it with great applause.
But, being a keenly observant young person, and also in a very sensitive state, she noticed that her father held aloof and did not look quite well pleased. And she, remembering her refusal to take singing lessons, felt, naturally, a little guilty.