As he stood there, listening, a little behind, one impressive forefinger held up in an attitude of discriminative attention, he was aware of two voices in the street outside catching up the tune naturally, and fitting it as if in sport to shapeless syllables of their own invention. They were women’s voices, too, young and rich and powerful; and what was odder still, to Florian’s immense surprise, they took up their proper parts as second and third in a concerted piece, like trained musicians. Strange to find such finished vocalists in a mere peasant hamlet!—but, there, no doubt they were some of Herr Hausberger’s Transatlantic performers. Florian moved closer to the window to observe the unknown but silvery-tongued strangers. As he did so, two plump and rosy-cheeked mountain lasses, in homespun kirtles, fled, blushing and giggling, with their hands to their mouths, away from the close scrutiny of the foreign Herrschaft. Accustomed as he was by this time to marvellous incongruities in this land of surprises, Florian could hardly believe his own eyes when he further observed that the two girls with the divine voices were driving cows home from the pasture to the milking shed. Great heavens, yes! there was no gainsaying it. Shade of Wagner, incredible! The accomplished vocalists whose fine sense of melody so delighted his acute and critical ear were nothing but a pair of common country milkmaids! Will Deverill, too, had risen, and, with a friendly nod, was gazing out appreciation at his unknown accompanists. Florian turned to him, all amazement. “They _must_ have practised it before,” he cried. “They must know it all of old. It must certainly be one of their own national pieces.” “Oh, no,” the poet replied in a very confident voice. “They can’t possibly have heard it. It’s quite, quite new. I’m sure about that. It’s never yet been published.” “But, my dear fellow,” Florian exclaimed, with much argumentative heat, “I assure you, none but the most instructed musicians could possibly take up the right chords like that, and sing them second and third, without having practised them beforehand. Allow me to know _something_ of the musical art. Even Patti herself——” “Why, the song’s my own,” Will broke in, much amused, and unable to restrain himself. “I ought to know; it was I who wrote it.” “The words! ah, yes, to be sure; the words are nothing. They didn’t sing _them_, of course; ’twas the melody they caught at. And the melody, I venture to assert, without fear of contradiction—the melody, from the peculiar way it modulates into the sub-dominant, must certainly be one of their own love songs.” “But I composed the tune too,” Will made answer with a quiet smile. “It’s never been played before. It came up into my head in the railway carriage yesterday, and seeing this old fiddle in the cupboard this morning, I thought I’d try it over before scoring it down, just to hear how it sounded.”