It was Mrs. Jael who came out with a tinder-box and lit the candles in the music-room. Barbara watched her through the window, noticing, almost unconsciously, the woman’s double chin, and loose, lying, voluble mouth. She was watching Mrs. Jael when my lord took her by the elbow playfully and turned her toward the portico. “Come, Mistress Jet and Ivory, we must see how you fancy Parson Herrick.” Anne Purcell went in after them, Mrs. Jael standing back as my lady entered. “You can send the people to bed early, Jael.” “Yes, my lady,” and the confidential creature passed out. Yet what she did was to fly up to Mistress Barbara’s room so that her breath came in short wheezes, unlock the coffer, grope therein tentatively, relock it, and hurry down again with a complacent smirk on her fat face. For Mrs. Jael had a sense of the dramatic where self was concerned, and could keep a shut mouth, despite her loquacity, till the occasion should come when she could most magnify herself by opening it. She went out again into the garden, where it was already growing dusk, and, crossing the grass softly, stood at one corner of the music-room where she could wait to hear whether her prophecies were likely to be realized. My lord had established himself on the settle with the scarlet cushion, and was playing an aria, the rings on his fingers glancing in the candle-light. The mirror had been taken from the wall above the harpsichord. In the window-seat Anne Purcell showed a full-lipped, round-chinned profile ready to be outlined by the rising moon, while on a high-backed chair beside the door sat Barbara, quiet and devout as any novice. “Sing us that song of Mr. Pepys’s, Stephen.” “‘Beauty Advance,’ eh? A wicked wag, that Admiralty fellow. I have watched him in church trying to discover which girl in the congregation would make the prettiest beatitude. A dull song, very, for so lively a gossip.” My lord had a habit of turning his head and looking over his shoulder, as though he never for one moment forgot his audience. “Well, has Proserpine a word to say?” Barbara gave him her sombre eyes at noon. “There are my father’s songs.” My lord struck a false note on the harpsichord. “Some old Cavalier ditty, fusty as a buff coat! No, my dear, we have forgotten how to carry a bandolier.” “Let the girl try something. Teach her one of the playhouse songs.” Barbara sat with one hand in her bosom. “There is an old song I remember,” she said, with the far-away look of one calling something to mind. My lord paused and glanced at her. “What do you call it?” She met his eyes. “‘The Chain of Gold.’” “The name has slipped my memory. How does it run?” Barbara leaned against the high back of her chair. She looked steadily at Stephen Gore, every fibre in her tense as the fibres of a yew bow bent by an English arm. “‘My love has left me a chain of gold.’ That is the first line.” My lord furrowed his forehead thoughtfully. “Hum! go on. I catch nothing of it yet.”