"I can hear you, even in the kitchen. Oh, it's just lovely! I don't care what I have to do then, if it's grates or plates or steps. The music goes and goes, and I feel back in the country again, and standing, as I used to love to stand of an evening, by the stile, under the big elm, and watch how the sunset did redden the white birches, and fade in the water. Oh, it was so nice in the springtime, with the hawthorn that grew on the other bank, and the bluebells----" The pretty face was full of dreamy tenderness, the eyes lit up witchingly. She pulled herself up suddenly, and stole a shy glance at her auditor. "Yes, yes, go on," he said; "tell me all you feel about the music." "And there's one song you sometimes play that makes me feel floating on and on like a great white swan." She hummed a few bars of the _Gondel-Lied_--flawlessly. "Dear me! you have an ear!" he said, pinching it. "And how did you like what I was playing just now?" he went on, growing curious to know how his own improvisations struck her. "Oh, I liked it so much," she whispered enthusiastically, "because it reminded me of my favourite one--every moment I did think--I thought--you were going to come into that." The whimsical sparkle leapt into his eyes. "And I thought I was so original," he murmured. "But what I liked best," she began, then checked herself, as if suddenly remembering she had never made a spontaneous remark before, and lacking courage to establish a precedent. "Yes--what you liked best?" he said encouragingly. "That song you sang this afternoon," she said shyly. "What song? I sang no song," he said, puzzled for a moment. "Oh yes! That one about-- 'Kiss me, dear love, good-night.' I was going upstairs, but it made me stop just here--and cry." He made his comic grimace. "So it was you Beethoven was barking at! And I thought he had an ear! And I thought you had an ear! But no! You're both Philistines, after all. Heigho!" She looked sad. "Oughtn't I to ha' liked it?" she asked anxiously. "Oh yes," he said reassuringly, "it's very popular. No drawing-room is without it." She detected the ironic ring in his voice. "It wasn't so much the music," she began apologetically. "Now--now you're going to spoil yourself," he said. "Be natural." "But it wasn't," she protested. "It was the words----" "That's worse," he murmured below his breath. "They reminded me of my mother as she laid dying." "Ah!" said Lancelot.