"My creed, you know," she replied, "makes all mankind kindred."
"Nonsense!" said Gregory, irritably; "deliver me from your church sisters."
"Take care!" she answered, with a warning nod, "I'm a church sister; so don't drive me away, for I am going to sing you to sleep."
"I'm half inclined to join your church that I may call you sister."
"You would be disciplined and excommunicated within a month. But hush; you must not talk."
"How would you treat me after I had been anathematized?"
"If you were as ill as you are to-day I would make you sleep. Hush; not another word. I am going to sing."
A luxurious sense of comfort stole over him, and he composed himself to listen and criticise, little imagining, though, that he would fall asleep. He saw through the window a lowering sky with leaden clouds driven wildly across it. The wind moaned and soughed around the angles of the house, and the rain beat against the glass. All without seemed emblematic of himself. But now he had a brief but blessed sense of shelter from both the storm and himself. The fire blazed cheerily on the hearth. The afghan seemed to envelop him like a genial atmosphere. Had Miss Walton bewitched it by her touch? And now she has found something to suit her, or rather him, and is singing.
"What an unusual voice she has!" he thought "Truly the spirit of David's harp, that could banish the demon from Saul, dwells in it. I wonder if she is as good and real as she seems, or whether, under the stress of temptation or the poison of flattery, she would not show herself a true daughter of Eve? I must find out, for it is about the only remaining question that interests me. If she is like the rest of us—if she is a female Hunting—then good-by to all hope. I shall not live to find anybody or anything to trust. If she is what she seems, it's barely possible that she might help me out of this horrible 'slough of despond,' if she would take the trouble. I wish that she were my sister, or that my sister had lived and had been just like her."