She had a little piano-forte in her dressing-room, removed there to while away the hours of her confinement to its precincts; and she contrived, without disturbing her companions, to wheel her light sofa in the right direction. She then arranged herself in a moment before the instrument, and saying, playfully, "Mary, my dear, you shall have some of your favourite songs to cheer you up a little," she struck the chords, and without waiting for further encouragement or reply, began to sing--perhaps by accident, but more probably by design--her choice falling upon those plaintive songs and ballads with which she delighted Mary that first evening, more than four years ago, of her last visit to Silverton. That night on which her fair hostess was always pleased to consider the magic of her own sweet singing had in no slight degree contributed to weave the fatal spell, whose broken charm it was now so much her object to renew. What better could she do for Eugene's interest, than try this method of enchantment once again? And could Mary listen, and her susceptible soul not be touched by the memories and associations which must be naturally awakened? Could she sit by Eugene's side, and not be carried back in softened fancy to the time--that time to use the impassioned language of the poet-- "When full of blissful sighs They sat and gazed into each other's eyes, Silent and happy, as if God had given Nought else worth looking on this side of heaven." Alas! for the spell so irremediably broken, that not even this sweet and subtlest of all human influences can restore. Mary's soul was stirred indeed within her, but it was with very different emotions than those which were intended to be produced; above all was her heart swelling within her, with wounded, more than indignant feelings, against the pretended friend who had thus made her the unsuspected victim of an unworthy plot. Therefore the soft music rather seemed to irritate, than to soothe her jarred and shaken nerves--the words of thrilling pathos, which the strain for the most part conveyed, to sound in mocking accents on her ear. "The sunshine of my life is in those eyes, And when thou leav'st me, all is dark within." What to her could such words be, but mockery; when now, alone "the image of a wicked, heinous fault lived in the eye," which once, indeed, had seemed too powerfully to absorb the whole sunshine of her life.