"I'm not a fool," she continued, "so please don't waste your breath. You have heard all the star singers, and know how ridiculously far beneath them I fall, when I try to sing their music. I think you might have told me. It would have been truer kindness than your hollow applause. Why our teachers make us the laughing-stock of society, by keeping us upon these absurd attempts at music beyond us, to the exclusion of everything else, is something that I can't understand. My ear is not over nice, but I have always had a suspicion that I was executing, in the sense of murder, the difficult arias that the old weazen-faced Italian professor kept me at till brother Dan said, in truth, that I was turning into a screech-owl. But no one, save he and Mr. Hemstead, has been honest enough to tell me the truth. Thus, on many occasions, I have taxed the politeness of people to the utmost, no doubt, and been the cause of innumerable complimentary fibs, like those you have just been guilty of, Julian. Perhaps, Mr. Hemstead, you think a style of music like this more suited to my powers "; and she struck into a well-known plantation song. "No," said he, laughing, "I think you do yourself still greater injustice." "You probably think I cannot sing at all." "On the contrary, I think you have an unusually good voice. I wish you would sing that air that you were humming when you came into the parlor this afternoon. I liked that, and imagine it is suited to your voice." "What was it? O, I remember. An arr from Faust, that Marguerite sings at her spinning-wheel. I think I can give that pretty decently." She sang it sweetly, with taste and some power. Hemstead's appreciation was hearty, and she knew it was sincere. "Now that you have done me such good service," she said laughing, "and shown that mediocrity is my musical position, let us have some old-fashioned ballads, and all sing them together in sleigh-riding style." "Pardon me, Miss Marsden, I assign you to mediocrity in nothing." "O, no, not you; my own abilities place me there. But come, each one sing"; and she commenced a ballad, well known to the others, but not to him. It sounded very well indeed, only Harcourt's bass was much too light for the other voices. "Why don't you sing?" asked Lottie of Hemstead. "I do not know the air or words." "Shall we try Old Hundred?" asked De Forrest. "Ahem! The long metre doxology. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Addie and Harcourt joined in laughingly. Bel began with them, but stopped when she saw that Lottie did not sing. "Do you believe that 'all blessings flow' from God?" asked Hemstead of De Forrest. "I suppose so, according to Old Hundred," he said lightly. "You don't 'suppose so' at all, Julian. You know it, as we all do, however we may act," said Lottie, with emphasis.