The stranger gave her a compassionate glance. "I wonder," said she, musingly, "whether it is better to have had such faith and lost it, or never to have had it at all." "It is better to have lost it," replied Astra quickly, and with a slight shudder. "One can live in the hope of finding it again." The visitor sighed, and turned to look at the sketches on the wall. By and by, she slid easily into a discourse about various art-matters; holding Astra spellbound, for awhile, with the fluent richness of her diction, and the extent of her knowledge. Nor was Astra allowed to listen only. A certain graphic portrayal of art-life in Italy having stirred her to the depths, and kindled the old fire and energy of enthusiasm in her eyes, she was skilfully drawn on to talk of herself and her work, her aims, longings, limitations, and needs, as she had never talked before, because she had never before met with so understanding and sympathetic an auditor. In the midst of one of her animated sentences, a low moan was heard from the inner room. "Excuse me," said Astra hurriedly, amazed to see how completely she had forgotten her cares, fears, and griefs, in the magic of the stranger's presence,--"Excuse me, I must go to my mother." Mrs. Lyte had waked, as was too often the case, in a spasm of pain. Astra hastened to call Cathie from the kitchen to assist the laboring breath with gentle wafts of air from a fan, while she herself measured some drops of a soothing mixture, and lifted her mother's head on her arm, to enable her to swallow and to breathe more easily. Several anxious moments had passed thus, in silence broken only by the painful respirations of the invalid, when a low, sweet strain of melody stole so gently into the room that Astra could not tell, at first, from whence it came. So soft was it that it melted into the ear without making any apparent demand upon the attention, yet so clear that not one liquid note was lost. The swollen veins of Mrs. Lyte's forehead subsided; her chest ceased its agonized heaving; a peaceful, happy smile broke over her face. "What is it?" she asked, wonderingly, when the strain ended,--not abruptly, but gradually growing fainter, until it was impossible to tell just at what point sound became silence. Astra whispered softly that she had left a strange visitor in the studio, who appeared to be singing unconsciously to herself. "If she would only sing again!" murmured Mrs. Lyte, wistfully. With her usual impulsiveness, Cathie rushed to the studio door. "Mamma wishes you would sing--" she began, and then stopped short, no less surprised and fascinated by the face that met her gaze than her sister had been.