"Earnestness, depth. You sang it as if your soul and the soul of the song were one. Now I can tell you that I fancied you only skimmed over the surface of things--like a bird over the sea. I can tell you now, since I was wrong." Her cheeks are glowing. "And Miss Lisle?" she says. "What, now, about Miss Lisle?" He is amused and perplexed at Sissy's persistence. "She is one of your heroic women;" and Miss Langton nods her pretty head. "Oh, I know! Jael and _Judith_ and Charlotte Corday." "I don't think I said anything about Judith: surely _you_ suggested her. And, to tell you the truth, Sissy, I looked in the Apocrypha, and I thought I liked I her the least of the trio. It wasn't a swift impulse like Jael's, who suddenly saw the tyrant given into her hands, and it wanted the grace of Charlotte Corday's utter self-sacrifice and quick death. Judith had great honor, and lived to be over a hundred, didn't she? I wonder if she often talked about Holofernes when she was eighty or ninety, and about her triumph--how she was crowned with a garland and led the dance? She ran an awful risk, no doubt, but she was in awful peril: it was glory or death. Charlotte Corday had no chance of a triumph: she must have known that success, as well as failure, meant the death-cart and the guillotine. Judith seems to have played her part fairly well to the end, I allow, but don't you think the praises and the after-life spoil it rather?" Sissy, passing lightly over Percival's views about Charlotte Corday and the widow of a hundred and five who was mourned by all Israel, pounced on a more interesting avowal: "So you looked Judith out and studied her? Oh, Percival!" "My dear Sissy, shall I tell you how many times I have seen Miss Lisle?" He was answering her arch glance rather than her spoken question. "How few times, I should say. Twice." "I've made up _my_ mind about people when I've only seen them once," said Sissy, apparently addressing the carpet. "Very likely: some people have that power," said Percival. "Besides, seeing them once may mean that you had a good long interview under favorable circumstances. Now," with a smile, "shall I tell you all that Miss Lisle and I said to each other in our two meetings?" He paused, encountering Sissy's eyes, brilliantly and wickedly full of meaning. "What! do you remember every word? Oh, Percival!" "Hush!" said Mrs. Middleton, lifting her head from the cushion: "listen! isn't that Horace?" "I think so;" and Percival stooped for the _Times_, which had fallen on the floor. Sissy stood with her hand on his chair, making no attempt to conceal her anxiety. The old lady noted her parted lips and eager eyes. "Ah! she does care for Horace. I knew it! I knew it!" she thought.