"Yes—he has all the ingredients to be a great writer, a good artist, a leading character, and yet he seems to have missed everything."
"Perhaps," said Kate, smiling, "he requires the predominance of some one of these qualities to decide his character, as the slightly superior strength of the right hand prevents the awkwardness of not knowing which to use."
"Very likely. Do you know, Miss Vernon, you think a good deal for a young lady!"
"I cannot accept so insulting a compliment," said Kate, laughing; and rising, at Mrs. Storey's request, she went to the piano. "I want your opinion of this air—it came back to me in a dream some nights ago. A poor silly boy at Dungar used to sing it so sweetly, and I have never heard it since. I rather think it is a very old air that escaped Moore and Sir John Stevenson—the Irish words I never knew; but these I found among poor Mr. Gilpin's papers—they seem to have been written not long before his sister's death."
And, after a few arpeggio chords, she sung as follows:—
"Look afar thro' the gloom, weary heart,
To yon dim and faint revealing,
The glim'ring ray
Of distant day
O'er life's troubled ocean stealing.