That evening, after dinner, when the ladies went into the drawing-room, Annie went as usual straight to the piano, while Lilian lounged upon a low seat in the corner near the entrance to the conservatory; her favorite retriever came to rub his head against her hand, and Annie thought, as she looked from the dog to its mistress, that she had never seen such a lovely woman. For Lilian had taken the utmost pains with her dress that evening; her black gown, cut square at the neck, set off the fairness of her complexion. She habitually despised ornaments, and could afford to do so; but to-night a few sprays of white azalea and white heath and delicate maiden-hair fern relieved the somber dress, and a very small bunch of azalea and fern was fastened by a gold-headed pin in her chestnut hair. And Annie saw the girl’s face flush when they heard the dining-room door open and the gentlemen’s voices across the hall; but when they all entered the room, Colonel Richardson came, in a few minutes, not to that seat near the conservatory, but to the piano, and told Annie that Schubert was his favorite composer. For it was a song from the “Schwanengesang,” arranged for the piano, that she was playing. Annie looked up with irrepressible surprise that he should recognize it. She was so used to an audience who considered all music above the level of Offenbach as a not unpleasant noise that her face beamed with pleasure at his very simple remark. “I will play you another--my favorite,” said she. And, in her delight at being with an appreciative listener, she played better than usual, and at the end looked up naively for his approval. He gave it without stint; and she went on from these to other favorite pieces, which she knew well enough to be able to talk at the same time. “You must lead an isolated life here, I should think, with no one to talk to?” “So I don’t talk,” said she, smiling; “I run wild in the fields with William.” “Do you like the life?” “Yes and--no. I like it when I don’t think. I like walking so far and running so fast and jumping over so many ditches that I am too tired at night to do anything but long for bed-time.” “But you can’t pass all your life like that.” “That is the worst of it. I hate the thought of coming back to semi-civilization when I am too old for my savage pastimes.” “You used to write a little, I think you told me. Have you given it up!” “Quite. I could never make a great author now, and nothing less would content me.” He smiled; there was something of the simplicity of a child about this matron. To be a great author one had but to wish it and to be unmarried. And he lingered about the piano a long time, discussing authors and authorship, and now and then hazarding a remark made expressly to bring the indignant fire into her eyes and some speech to her pretty lips piquant in its severity.