Through the rest of that song, there was breathless silence. At its end, the old gentlemen and ladies, after a short hushed stillness, broke into a sudden little burst of applause. There was a moment’s interval, and then the demonstration renewed itself more vigorously than before. People turned to one another and said, “What a beautiful voice!” or, “She sings divinely!” By this time the loungers who held aloof in the smoking-room were crowding about the doorway. A third time they clapped their hands; and at each round of applause, Linnet, alternately pale and flushed with excitement, dropped a little mountain curtsey, and half cried, and half smiled at them. Her hearing had returned with the first symptom of clapping hands; she could catch the vague murmur of satisfied criticism; she could catch Andreas Hausberger’s voice whispering low in an aside, “Very well sung, Linnet.” But her eyes were fixed on Will, and on Will alone; and when Will framed his lips to one word of approbation, the hot blood rushed to her cheeks in a torrent of delight that at last she had justified her Engländer’s praises. Linnet was the heroine of that evening’s performance. Andreas Hausberger sang “He was a jäger bold”; Philippina, looking arch, twanged the thankless zither. But the audience waited cold till ’twas Linnet’s turn again. Then, as she rose, they signified their approval once more by another little storm of applause and encouragement. Linnet curtsied, and curtsied, and curtsied again, and stared straight at Will Deverill. This second time she sang in less fear and trembling; she could hear her own notes now, and Will’s face encouraged her. She acquitted herself, on the whole, even better than before. Her rich pure voice, though comparatively untrained, exhibited itself at its best in that pathetic little ballad of her native hills, “The Alp-girl’s Lover.” She sang it most dramatically, with one hand pressed hard on her heaving bosom. At the end, the audience clapped till Linnet was covered with blushes. A mere scratch performance before some casual tourists in the drawing-room of an hotel; but to Linnet, it came home as appreciation and praise from the grandest of gentlefolk.