The dinner party at Mount Severn this evening was an undoubted success, as were most of Lady Severn's entertainments, for she possessed to a great degree that invaluable gift of a hostess—the art of allowing people to entertain themselves. And, added to the charm of her manner, and her undoubted tact in bringing the right people together, Lady Severn had all the accessories to make a dinner party go off well. The large dining-room was a long, low, octagonal apartment, with a small conservatory opening out at the lower end. There were numerous small alcoves in the wall, and in the recesses of each of these were huge pots of maidenhair fern.

All along the oak-panelled walls at short intervals were placed old-fashioned brass sconces with candles in them, which shed a clear though subdued light on the dinner table and the faces of the guests, and brought into prominence the bright hues of the ladies' gowns and the sparkling crystal and silver on the dinner table.

At the head of the table sat Lord Severn, a hale, hearty old gentleman of seventy. He was devoted to fox-hunting, and always ready to get up at five o'clock in the morning when a good run was in prospect. His wife sat opposite him. She was a beautiful old lady, her face clear-cut as a cameo. Her features were regular, and her bright black eyes flashed under her high intellectual forehead with a brilliancy a girl of sixteen might have envied. Her hair was snowy white, and rolled back À la pompadour.

To-night she was dressed in a gown of heliotrope satin, trimmed with white point lace, and here and there in her hair and gown she wore pins made of the Severn diamonds. Round her neck glistened a magnificent necklace of these gems, which were of world-wide fame, having been given to Lord Severn by an Indian rajah as a recompense for saving him from drowning.

Lady Severn had been talking about her celebrated guest, who was not at dinner this evening.

"I am sorry you have not met Mademoiselle Laurentia; unfortunately she has been suffering for the last two days with a very severe nervous headache, and to-night did not feel inclined to come to dinner. However, I hope later on she will be better, and able to sing for you. Before dinner she went out into the garden, thinking the cool air would do her head good."

"Yes, I am very anxious to meet her," replied Lady Margaret, "and NoËl is, for him, quite excited about her, coming as she does from Canada."

"Yes, she comes from Canada, and she has quite a romantic history. Perhaps she will tell you about that herself some day. She has only been with us a week, but already we are very fond of her, she is such a winning little creature, and her French Canadian songs are charming."

"Oh! NoËl will be delighted," said Lady Margaret; "he waxes enthusiastic on the subject of French Canadian boat-songs. Do you think Mademoiselle Laurentia would spend a week with us at the Glen?"

"No, I'm afraid not; she is engaged to sing at Her Majesty's next week, and goes from here to London. You may have better luck in the autumn, though, when her London engagement is over."

"I'm sorry she can't come now, for we should have been delighted to have her at the Glen."

"Elsie dear," said Lady Severn to her daughter, a tall, fair girl of nineteen, who was endeavoring to amuse The McAllister, a difficult task—"Elsie dear, what part of Canada does Mademoiselle Laurentia come from?"

"Oh! somewhere on the banks of the St. Lawrence—some unpronounceable name."

"Delightfully vague," said NoËl McAllister. "The ideas you English people have about our country are refreshing. One young lady, whom I supposed to have been fairly well educated, asked me, in the most matter-of-fact tone, whether we went down the rapids in toboggans. I can assure you it required a strong effort of will on my part to refrain from laughing outright."

"What did you tell her?" inquired Elsie.

"Oh! I said if she had ever seen either a rapid or a toboggan; she would hardly think of associating the two."

"Some day I wish you and Lady Margaret would make an excursion to Canada, and take me with you. It would be so exciting——"

"Come, Elsie," interrupted her mother, "come, we must go. Mademoiselle Laurentia will be lonely."

The ladies rose to go, Elsie saying in an undertone to The McAllister:

"Now, don't spend an hour over those stupid politics. I want you to hear mademoiselle sing."

"Politics!" he replied, with a disdainful shrug of his shoulders. "I take no interest whatever in them. Do not fear, Miss Elsie."

"I should like to know what you do take an interest in," remarked the young lady mischievously, as she hurried out of the room.

On entering the drawing-room they failed to find Mademoiselle Laurentia, so Lady Severn proposed that they should go into the garden.

"Elsie, run up to my room and fetch some shawls; the evening is quite chilly."

It was a lovely night in the end of April; the moon was full, and glimmering with sheeny whiteness over the distant hills. The garden at Mount Severn was an old-fashioned one, laid out in the early Elizabethan style in stately terraces and winding paths.

On each terrace were planted beds of luxuriant scarlet geraniums and early spring flowers. Every once in a while one came across a huge copper beech, and gloomy close-clipped hedges of yew divided the garden proper from the adjacent park.

Somewhere in the distance could be heard the trickling of a tiny rivulet, which supplied the fountain in the middle of the garden. There were many roughly-hewn, picturesque-looking rustic chairs scattered about, and near one of these Lady Margaret paused.

"May we sit here?" she said, turning to her hostess. "I really think this is the most delightful garden I ever saw in my life. They talk about Devonshire; I never saw anything half so lovely there."

"Yes, certainly it is pretty," assented its proprietress. "But where is Mademoiselle Laurentia?"

"In her favorite nook beside the old copper beech. See, you can catch a glimpse of her if you look round that tree."

Yes, there was Mademoiselle Laurentia, and a very insignificant little person she appeared at first sight. Her hands were clasped, and she was apparently deep in thought. She was clad in a gown of some soft shimmery white material, which fell in graceful folds about her, and in the clear beams of the moon looked like a robe of woven silver. Round her throat was a row of pearls, and in her dark brown hair were two or three diamond pins.

As Elsie Severn returned and came towards her, she lifted her head, and her face could be distinctly seen. A very sweet face it was, too, albeit not that of a woman in the first freshness of her youth.

The eyes were dark and bright, the forehead broad and low, with lines of strong determination marked on it. The mouth, that most characteristic feature, was somewhat large and expressive. But the successful prima donna's face wore a not altogether happy expression, though when she spoke the sad look went out of it; only when in repose it was always there.

"Well, Mademoiselle Laurentia, how is your head now? Better, I hope?"

"Yes, dear, the pain is quite gone now. And how did your dinner-party go off?"

"Oh! very well. I sat next The McAllister, and he was a little more lively than usual. He is most anxious to meet you. You know he comes from Canada."

"Yes, I know," said Mademoiselle Laurentia abruptly.

"Did you ever meet him there?" went on Elsie.

"I used to know a family called McAllister a long time ago, when I was quite young."

"Indeed? But, mademoiselle, don't talk as if you were a hundred. I'm sure you don't look much older than I."

"In years, perhaps, I am not so very much older; but in thought, Elsie, a century."

"Poor Mademoiselle Laurentia, your life has been a hard one, in spite of all its success. I don't want to intrude, but I often think you must have had some great sorrow. Have you?"

"Yes, my dear, I have. I cannot talk of it to-night, though. No, no, not to-night at any rate."

Elsie rather wondered why she laid such particular stress on the present time, but did not like to pursue the subject.

"Elsie, would you like me to sing for you now?" asked Mademoiselle Laurentia suddenly. "This garden is an inspiration."

"Yes, I should, above all things, if you feel well enough."

"Then what shall it be? Choose."

"Oh! if you please, Gounod's Slumber-song. This is just the time and place for it."

Accordingly, with only the rippling of the fountain as an accompaniment, the sweet clear notes rose, and the highly-trained voice of the prima donna performed the difficult runs and trills of this most beautiful of slumber-songs with that precision and delicacy attained by years of practice and hard training.

The song came to an end, and for a few moments no one spoke, till at length Elsie Severn, drawing a deep sigh of relief, said in her impulsive way:

"Why, Mademoiselle Laurentia, I have never heard you sing like that before. I thought I had heard you at your best in London, but I never felt your singing so much as to-night."

"I am glad you were pleased, my dear. Would you like another?"

"Yes, above all things. Just wait a moment though; I want to speak to mamma."

Elsie crossed over to where Lady Severn sat, and whispered to her saying:

"If the gentlemen come out while mademoiselle is singing, don't let any of them come over to us. She can't bear a crowd round her, and I don't want her to be disturbed."

"Very well, child; it shall be as you wish. I hope, though, you did not ask mademoiselle to sing; you must not do that."

"No, no, indeed I did not, mamma. She offered to sing for me."

A curious friendship had sprung up last winter in London between Elsie Severn and the famous prima donna. They had met one afternoon at a reception, and been mutually pleased with each other. There was something about the frank outspoken manner of the young girl which appealed to Mademoiselle Laurentia, wearied as she was with the conventional adulation, in reality amounting to so little, of the world in which she moved.

"Now, mademoiselle," said Elsie, "I am ready. It is so good of you to sing for me."

"My child, you know I love to give you pleasure," she replied, stroking the girl's fair hair caressingly. "Listen! I will sing for you a song I have not sung for years—ah! so many, many years."

She began softly, slowly, a Canadian boat-song, heard often on the raftsman's barge or habitant's canoe, on the Ottawa or great St. Lawrence—a national song, with its quaint monotonous melody and simple pathetic words.

And the voice which rendered so effectively the technical difficulties of Wagner and Gounod sang this simple air with a pathos and feeling all its own:

"Why, McAllister, whatever is the matter with you? Have you seen a ghost? You are as white as a sheet. Are you ill?"

"No, no, I'm not ill. Do be quiet, Jack. What a row you're making! I do feel a little seedy; it's these horrid cigars of yours."

"Nonsense!" retorted Jack Severn. "You couldn't get better ones; it isn't that. I believe you've seen the ghost of old Lady Severn, my great-grandmother, walking with her head in her hands. This is the time of year she always turns up. It must be the spring house-cleaning that disturbs her rest. Did you see her? I've sat up night after night to try and catch sight of the old lady, and I've always missed her. Where was she? Tell me quickly. I'll run after her."

"I didn't see your great-grandmother or anybody else, so do stop chattering, Jack, and for goodness' sake let me hear that song," said McAllister irritably.

"Well, well," muttered Jack Severn to himself, "I never saw The McAllister in such a temper before. As a rule, he is too lazy to be angry at anything, I really think he must be ill."

Mademoiselle Laurentia finished singing. The McAllister's thoughts by this time were far away on the pebbly beach at Father Point, where the tide was coming in rippling over the stones, and his memory had gone back to an evening ten years ago. He was again standing beside a huge boulder, on which sat a girl in a pink cotton frock. She was singing in a sweet low voice:

And he was saying to her:

"Marie, you know, my dear one—

Yes, for years. My love for you is deep as that great river, and stronger, mightier." And the girl had answered, looking at him with her great brown eyes full of unutterable tenderness and faith:

"Yes, NoËl, I believe you will never change;" and their voices joined in the refrain of that old boat-song, awaking the echoes:

"Mr. McAllister, how ill you look," said Elsie Severn, coming towards him, and noticing his weary, abstracted expression.

"Yes, that's just what I was saying," put in the irrepressible Jack. "I think he'd better go home."

"How rude you are!" said his sister. "Come, Mr. McAllister, come into the house, and I will give you a cup of tea. That will do you good, and then I will introduce you to Mademoiselle Laurentia."

"Oh! Miss Elsie, there's nothing the matter with me. I should like to be introduced to Mademoiselle Laurentia now."

"Very well. See, she is coming this way," said Elsie. "Is she not pretty? Have you ever seen her before?"

"Seen her before? How could I have seen her before?"

He told the untruth unblushingly; it was by no means his first.

Mademoiselle Laurentia was close to them now, and Elsie said, in her clear, distinct tones:

"Let me introduce Mr. McAllister to you, mademoiselle. You are compatriots."

Just then Lady Severn called Elsie, and Marie Gourdon and NoËl McAllister were left alone for a moment. She was the first to break the awkward silence, as she said in her quiet voice, without the faintest shade of embarrassment in it:

"How do you like this country, Mr. McAllister?"

"How do I like this country? Is that all you have to say to me after these years?"

"What else can I have to say to you? Is not this a fine old garden? How brightly the moon shines!"

"Marie Gourdon, do not speak to me in that calm, aggravating way. Reproach me! Anything but this. I cannot bear your indifference."

"Reproach you? For what? Do you mean for leaving me? If so, that is an old story, told long, long ago. I am thankful now you did leave me. And, Mr. McAllister, I must remind you that only to my most intimate friends am I known as Marie Gourdon. I must beg you to excuse me now; Lady Severn is calling me."