"You do not interrupt me in the least, I assure you; but if you are determined to go, perhaps you will sing. I see Colonel Vernon shutting his writing desk."
"With pleasure; would you like an Irish melody?"
"Beyond every thing."
And the next minute her rich voice was pouring forth in a full tide of sweetness, "Has sorrow thy young days shaded?"
I soon dropped my pencil, and even after the last notes had died away, remained listening for their renewal; then collecting my drawing materials, I rose, and promising Miss Vernon to finish the sketch from memory, I invited the Colonel to accompany me on a visit of ceremony to Mrs. Winter; it was succeeded by another peep at the studio, a walk with the Colonel, and then came the pleasant friendly dinner, the frank cheerful interchange of thought, the after-dinner cup of coffee and stroll in the pleasure ground to look at the moon reflected in the river; while Miss Vernon, courteously anxious to give me what she prized herself, gathered a bouquet of her choicest autumnal flowers, "to make me forget that horrid Carrington, at least in my own room," she said; her grandfather laughing at the idea of her expecting I should care for such things.
How delightfully homelike it all was.
Finally she sang me the serenade that had so enchanted me, and before the last notes were well hushed, Nurse announced the cab I had ordered to convey me to the railway.
I rose reluctantly, the Colonel, Nurse, and Cormac, and even Kate, coming out in the fresh night air, all perfumed with the clematis and heliotropes that adorned the front of the cottage, to see me off.
"Good bye, Captain Egerton," said Kate,— "be sure to come back soon, and do not forget the drawings; have you got your flowers?"
"It would be a bold man that would attempt to take them from me, Miss Vernon; good night!"