I was more startled than I liked to show. There was something so uncanny in this echo of the very words I had so lately heard from that little forest-sprite, that it was only by a great effort I succeeded in saying, carelessly, “Let us banish so unpleasant a topic. Won’t you sing us something, Lady Muriel? I know you do sing without music.”
“The only songs I know—without music—are desperately sentimental, I’m afraid! Are your tears all ready?”
“Quite ready! Quite ready!” came from all sides, and Lady Muriel—not being one of those lady-singers who think it de rigueur to decline to sing till they have been petitioned three or four times, and have pleaded failure of memory, loss of voice, and other conclusive reasons for silence—began at once:—
‘THREE BADGERS ON A MOSSY STONE’
“There be three Badgers on a mossy stone,
Beside a dark and covered way:
Each dreams himself a monarch on his throne,
And so they stay and stay——
Though their old Father languishes alone,