'Oh, Mr. St. Clare, I'm enchanted with your last song,' said Lady Castlerich. 'Every one is talking of it, it is quite the rage, charmin', I wish I had had it ten years ago, my voice is gone now.' 'You still sing charmingly, Lady Castlerich, not much voice is required if the singer is a musician.' 'You're very kind,' and the old lady laughed with pleasure, and Mrs. Lahens smiled satirically, and whispered: 'Oh, you fibber, St. Clare.' 'I'm not fibbing,' he answered; 'she sings the old Italian airs charmingly.' Soon after lunch was announced, and Mrs. Lahens once more asked Father White to stay. He begged her to excuse him, and she went into the diningroom leaving him in the passage with Agnes. 'Good-bye, my dear child, I shall see you next week. I will write telling you when I'm coming, and you'll tell me what you think of the world. The convent is only for those who have a vocation. You can serve God in the world as well as elsewhere.' 'I wonder,' said Agnes, and she looked doubtfully into the priest's eyes. 'I wonder. I confess I'm a little curious. At present I do not understand at all.' 'Of course the convent is very different from the world,' said Father White. 'You learnt to understand the convent, now you must learn to understand the life of the world.' 'Must I? Why must I?' 'So that you may be sure that you have a vocation. Good-bye, dear child. The Lord be with you.' Agnes went into the dining-room, and she noticed that every one was listening to her father, who was talking of the success her mother had had at a concert. She had sung two songs by Gounod and Cherubino's _Ave Maria_. He declared that he had never seen anything like it. He wished every one had been there. His wife was in splendid voice. It was a treat, and the public thought so too. Agnes listened and was touched by her father's admiration and love for her mother. But very soon she perceived that the others were listening superciliously. Suddenly Mrs. Lahens intervened. 'My dear Major, you're talking too much, remember your promise.' The Major said not another word, and Agnes felt sorry for her father. She remembered him far back in her childhood, always a little weak and kind, always devoted to her mother, always praising her, always attending on her, always carrying her music, reminding her of something she had forgotten, and running to fetch it. Looking at him now, after many years, she remembered that she used to see more of him than she did of her mother. He used to come to see her in the nursery, and she remembered how they used to go out together and sit on the stairs, so that they might hear mother, who was singing in the drawing-room. She remembered that she used to ask her father why they could not go to the drawing-room. He used to answer that mother had visitors. She used to hear men's voices, and then mother would call her father down to wish them good-bye.