"Mr. Redmond, I will sing for you, if you wish it," says a clear, childish voice, that has always something pathetic about it. Georgie has overheard his last speech, and has turned her soft, fair little face to his, and is speaking to him, with a flush and a smile.
"But, my dear, can you sing?" says the vicar, anxiously. Her face is full of music; but then he has never heard her sing. During her fortnight's stay at the vicarage she has never sung one note, has never betrayed the fact that she is a true daughter of Polyhymnia.
"I can, indeed,—really; I can sing very well," says Georgie, in her little earnest fashion, and without the very faintest suspicion of conceit. She is only eager to reassure him, to convince him of the fact that she is worthy to come to his relief.
"But the song?" says Mr. Redmond, still hesitating, and alluding to the second solo chosen by the defaulter.
"It is an old Irish song; I know it. It is 'Shule, agra,' and it begins, 'My Mary with the curling hair,'" says Georgie, with a slight nod. "I used to sing it long ago, and it is very pretty."
"Well, come," says the vicar, though with trepidation, and leads her on to the platform, and up to Mrs. Redmond, to that good woman's intense surprise.
Lady Mary has nearly brought her little vague whisper to an end. She has at last disclosed to a listening audience that she has discovered the real dwelling-place of the lost "Alice,"—who is uncomfortably ensconced "amidst the starshine," if all accounts be true,—and is now quavering feebly on a last and dying note.
"This is the song," says Mrs. Redmond, putting Sarah's rejected solo into her hand.
"Thank you," says Miss Broughton She looks neither frightened nor concerned, only a little pale, and with a great gleam in her eyes, born, as it were, of an earnest desire to achieve victory for the vicar's sake.
Then Lady Mary's final quaver dies, and she moves to one side, leaving the space before the piano quite clear.