Music was a passion with her. It seemed to stir a thousand slumbering harmonies into life within her heart.
"Do you play?" said Valchester a voice beside her, presently.
"No, I have never been taught," she answered, and he caught the faint tone of regret in the low voice.
"But you love music?" he said.
"Dearly," she answered, with unconscious pathos.
"You have not had a fashionable boarding-school education, Miss Meredith, I suppose," he said, and was sorry for the words a moment after as he saw the sensitive, ever-ready color tinge her cheek.
"Why do you say so?" she asked, toying nervously with the heavy fringe of the curtain. "Do I betray my ignorance so plainly?"
"Excuse me; not in the least," he replied. "I guessed so because you do not play."
"I am an orphan, Mr. Valchester," she said, raising her dark eyes to his face a moment. She seemed to think that all was said in that.
"A song, Mr. Valchester," said Violet Earle, looking round from the piano toward the window. "It is your turn now."