The table was lighted by shaded candles, which cast a soft glow over the white cloth and gleaming silver and glass. Silver dishes were being handed round, and Meg, hungry and tired, could have wept with longing and weariness as she compared her lot, out in the dark, with that of the guests who apparently had more than enough of this world's good things. But she knew she must not give way to tears or her chance of earning food would be diminished.
The conversation round the dinner table suddenly stopped, as there floated into the room the air of "The Last Rose of Summer," sung in a rich contralto voice.
"What's that?" asked the host in a very vexed tone of voice. "Some beggar no doubt." Then turning to the butler he added, "Send her away, we don't want vagabonds about the premises."
"Oh don't," cried a girl, leaning forward to try to get a glimpse of the singer, "she has the most lovely voice. I thought you had arranged it on purpose to give us a treat."
"It's a rich contralto," said one of the guests. "She ought to be given a chance of being trained."
The host beckoned the butler to his side, while his guests were commenting one to another about the singer.
"Give her two shillings and send her away," he said in a low voice.
Dessert being now on the table, Dent, the butler, went to follow out his master's injunctions, but being a musical man, he was bent on hearing more of that wonderful voice that he had listened to as he had handed round the fruit.
He soon discovered the girl in the dark.
"The master he don't like no beggars about," he said in not too gentle a voice, "so I advise you to be off my girl. Come now are you one of a clan?"