'I will, my love,' answered lady Margaret.
Rising, she went to the harpsichord, and sang, in sweet unaffected style, one of the songs of her native country, a merry ditty, with a breathing of sadness in the refrain of it, like a twilight wind in a bed of bulrushes.
'Thanks, my love,' said lord Herbert, when she had finished. 'But I would I could tell its hidden purport; for I am one of those who think music none the worse for carrying with it an air of such sound as speaks to the brain as well as the heart.'
Lady Margaret gave a playful sigh.
'Thou hast one fault, my Edward—thou art a stranger to the tongue in which, through my old nurse's tales, I learned the language of love. I cannot call it my mother-tongue, but it is my love-tongue. Why, when thou art from me, I am loving thee in Irish all day long, and thou never knowest what my heart says to thee! It is a sad lack in thy all-completeness, dear heart. But, I bethink me, thy new cousin did sing a fair song in thy own tongue the other day, the which if thou canst understand one straw better than my Irish, I will learn it for thy sake, though truly it is Greek to me. I will send for her. Shall I?'
As she spoke she rose and rang the bell on the table, and a little page, in waiting in the antechamber, appeared, whom she sent to desire the attendance of mistress Dorothy Vaughan.
'Come, child,' said her mistress as she entered, 'I would have thee sing to my lord the song that wandering harper taught thee.'
'Madam, I have learned of no wandering harper: your ladyship means mistress Amanda's Welsh song! shall I call her?' said Dorothy, disappointed.
'I mean thee, and thy song, thou green linnet!' rejoined lady
Margaret. 'What song was it of which I said to thee that the singer
deserved, for his very song's sake, that whereof he made his moan?
Whence thou hadst it, from harper or bagpiper, I care not.'
'Excuse me, madam, but why should I sing that you love not to hear?'