"You will both, I hope, fare better from the hands of Mr. I——- or Mr. S——-," said Charlie, with some little embarrassment.
Mr. Ellsworth, who had been standing near the group, now asked
Elinor to sing.
"What will you have?" she replied, taking a seat at the piano.
"Anything you please."
"Pray then give us Robin Adair, Miss Elinor," said Charlie.
Elinor sang the well-known song with greater sweetness than usual—she was decidedly in good voice; both Charlie and Harry listened with great pleasure as they stood by her side; Jane was also sitting near the piano, and seemed more interested in the music than usual; it was a song which the young widow had so often heard, in what she now looked back to as the happy days of her girlhood. More than one individual in the room thought it charming to listen to Elinor and look at Jane, at the same instant. Several of the gentlemen then sang, and the party broke up cheerfully.
Little was it thought, that never again could the same circle be re-united at Wyllys-Roof; all who crossed the threshold that night were not to return.
CHAPTER XX. {XLIII}
"I pr'ythee hear me speak!"
Richard III.
{William Shakespeare, "Richard III", IV.iv.180}