When the ladies adjourned to the drawing-room, which was so littered with costly knick-knacks that, as Nora afterwards averred, "it looked like a bazaar," that young lady gravitated by a natural attraction to Miss Harley's side, eager to ask her more questions about matters which had begun to interest her deeply. From Flanders, their talk soon drifted onwards to Germany and Italy. Nora, strange to say, had never yet been abroad, and cherished a most fresh and unsophisticated interest about those far countries which she had as yet seen only in books, pictures and dreams. Then they went on to talk of art; and, as a book of illustrations of Italian art lay conveniently at hand, they looked over a number of the engravings of old pictures together. They were lingering over the tragic face of Beatrice Cenci, with the mystic sorrow-laden eyes, which so attract and haunt the beholder; and Miss Harley was giving Nora an outline of her story, as you hear it in Rome, when the door opened, and Mr. Chillingworth entered, speedily finding his way to Miss Blanchard's side.

"I got tired of the politics in there," he said, smiling slightly, "so I thought I would set a good example. Ah! you're looking at the Cenci. What a tragedy lies sealed up in those dark eyes! What a type of the thousand tragedies that lie sealed up in many a ruin of those terrible old days!"

"And do you think we have no tragedies about us now?" asked Miss Harley, looking up at the tall figure above her.

"Oh yes, undoubtedly! But not so many, or so grim, I hope! And then, you know, we don't see present things quite so effectively, or in such good perspective as we do the past! We need a little distance, you see, in order to take things in as a whole."

"I suppose you are right, artistically speaking," replied Miss Harley, doubtfully. "But for myself, I must say, the sorrows of the real people about me always interest me more than the most romantic stories of the past."

"Now, don't try to persuade me that you are quite such a realist, Miss Harley, when you have shown what an idealist you are on social topics. What a noble man that father of yours must have been! I should like to know more of him. But come, Miss Blanchard, I see you are trying to make up your mind whether you're on Miss Harley's side or mine, and I don't want you to give judgment against me! Suppose you give us a little music, you and Miss Farrell. Can't we have a few airs from the Messiah, now? It would be such a good finish to the week's work—just what I need to put me in tune for to-morrow's duty!"

Nora colored a little at his thought-reading, but at once rose to comply with the request, which Miss Harley warmly endorsed. She had heard of Miss Blanchard's singing, and would be charmed to hear it for herself. There was a parlor-organ in a corner of the large room, in addition to the piano, and as they all agreed that this accompaniment would be much the more suitable for the music, Mr. Chillingworth gave his services as accompanist, playing with great taste and feeling. Nora sang the air, "He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd," and the other "He Was Despised and Rejected," with clear sweetness and pathetic expression, while a subdued stillness gradually stole over the little group of talkers at the other end of the room. Then, to check the little buzz of admiring comment, she insisted on Kitty's following at once with the air, "Come Unto Him All Ye That Are Weary and Heavy Laden:" Mr. Chillingworth took his turn in rendering, "Every Valley Shall Be Exalted," playing the beautiful undulating accompaniment for himself. Miss Pomeroy wanted to hear some of the choruses they had been practising, and they were just trying the angel's song, "Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men," when the other gentlemen entered the room.

The old gentleman, whose appearance and words had interested Nora a good deal, did not appear with the others, and she presently asked Mr. Archer, who came up to join her at the piano, what had become of him, and who and what he was.

"Oh, Dunlop always likes to slip away early," he said. "He's a queer old party! He's made a good deal of money in one way or other, so he's considered worth cultivating, and he knows it. He lives very quietly, they say; he's been a widower for years. He goes across the sea now and then, but always comes back 'to look after things.' He's got some ideas of his own, too, and he seems to take a great interest in this new paper of Graeme's—that 'crank' they were talking about. Now, I hope, since I have so amiably gratified your curiosity, you will gratify me by a song. I could catch distant echoes, tantalizingly remote, and now I want to hear the reality."

But Nora would sing only in the chorus they were just about to begin. She would not sing songs after the oratorio music.

When the chorus was over, Mrs. Pomeroy suggested that Mr. Chillingworth should give them a short poetical reading before the party broke up. "I know," she said, "that you'll give us something very nice, to dream on. Suppose you give us something from Browning. I just love to hear you read him! Clara, dear, won't you bring Mr. Chillingworth a volume of Browning?"

Miss Pomeroy, who belonged to a "Browning Club," speedily produced a volume which she knew contained a favorite reading of Mr. Chillingworth's. That gentleman seated himself where the soft light of a silver reading-lamp could fall most pleasantly on the book, while the rest of the company disposed themselves in various attitudes of luxurious repose, as people are apt to do after a sumptuous repast. Young Pomeroy threw himself on a sofa beside Kitty, where he could make whispered comments ad libitum. Nora found a place near Miss Harley, while Mr. Wharton lay back in an easy-chair with an expression of complaisant and critical expectancy.

It was the beautiful opening of the poem "Pippa Passes," that Mr. Chillingworth read, in a voice of musical quality and with a finished elocution, for he had paid special attention to that art. Perhaps it might have been objected that the reading suggested too much of the artist, and too little of the man. But Nora listened with keen and absorbed pleasure, as, through the music of the poet's lines and the reader's voice, one scene after another rose before her "inward eye." The glorious Italian morning just breaking over a sleeping country; the sunrise reddening, flickering, then "pure gold overflowing the world"; the little mill girl springing up, eager to lose not one minute of the long, lovely day, appealing to it, with its "long, blue solemn hours, serenely flowing" to "treat her well," and not spoil her one precious holiday by such gloom or showers as would not mar the pleasure of people richer in holidays and joys—the haughty beauty, the happy bride and groom, the boy and his mother, or Monsignore, in his dead brother's palace, the grandees of her little world:

Nora's thoughts went back with a bound to poor Lizzie Mason, her sad, tired face and shabby dress, and wondered if such thoughts and fancies ever flitted vaguely through her brain on a holiday. But the little girl is dreaming now of what or whom she shall please to be to-day:

Ah, poor Lizzie! far too heavily weighed down by serious and pressing cares, to have any wish to "play out fancy's games!" She glanced at Mrs. Pomeroy, who sat with clasped hands and attitude all attent, and at Miss Pomeroy, reclining with her cheek resting on her hand and an unusually softened expression in the lines of the somewhat hard face. She wondered if it occurred to them, how many real dramas might be going on about them, as worthy of their sympathy as this one, idealized by the power of the poet. She began to think how it would be, if she were, there and then, to go to Mr. Pomeroy with a petition to restore to his toiling maidens their full measure of wages. Strange that people should feel so much more for a girl in a book, than for the real flesh-and-blood ones, in daily life! But Mr. Pomeroy had apparently gone to sleep, and his son was whispering to Kitty, instead of listening. Ah, what was that? Was not this Kitty—to the life!

Was that how their protected happy life looked to those who saw them de bas en haut? Was it any wonder that girls like Nelly were pert and discontented? With such thoughts drifting through her mind, she listened, swayed by the magic power of poetry over the souls that are open to its charm, to Pippa's pathetic yearning for the love which, after all, is the blessing of blessings—the warm, cherishing love of the brooding bird, the love of the mother for the child, ending in the cry,

But what are these lines that follow? Nora listens with caught breath to the passage which closes the reading, given in Mr. Chillingworth's most impressive manner.

And so poor Pippa passes on, consoled for the wearisome silk-winding, the scant food, scant raiment, scant human love.

Yes, that was the best thing after all. Surely poor self-denying Lizzie had this best blessing of loving service. Nora scarcely heard the finishing lines of the passage, so engrossed was she with that thought. Mr. Chillingworth closed the volume, and a chorus of thanks and admiration followed.

It was Nora's first introduction to Pippa. She was familiar with most of the poets of the century—Tennyson, Whittier, Wordsworth, Longfellow; but with Browning she had scarcely got beyond the outer husk which repels so many, and really knew only one or two of his minor Lyrics. But the new, strenuous, heart-searching note took her captive. And often as she afterwards read the poem, she never did so without seeming to see the pathetic picture of Lizzie Mason, side by side with the little dreaming Italian silk-winder.

After the guests took leave, Kitty asked her if she would not come to church with her on the following evening, to hear Mr. Chillingworth preach, as she was occasionally in the habit of doing—Mr. Alden's church being the one her brother regularly attended. Nora willingly promised, and a little meaning smile passed between Kitty and her fiancÉ, as well-informed people now considered Harold Pomeroy to be.