"No, papa," said Miss Marjoribanks, with resignation. "I know you don't, and that is what makes it so sad. But talking of new carpets, you know, I had such an adventure to-day that I must tell you--quite one of _my_ adventures--the very luckiest thing. It happened when I was out walking; I heard a voice out of a house in Grove Street, just the _very_ thing to go with my voice. That is not a thing that happens every day," said Lucilla, "for all the masters have always told me that my voice was something quite by itself. When I heard it, though it was in Grove Street, and all the people about, I could have danced for joy." "It was a man's voice, I suppose," suggested Tom Marjoribanks, in gloomy tones; and the Doctor added, in his cynical way: "It's a wonderful advantage to be so pleased about trifles. What number was it? For my part, I have not many patients in Grove Street," said Dr Marjoribanks. "I would find a voice to suit you in another quarter, if I were you." "Dear papa, it's such a pity that you don't understand," said Lucilla compassionately. "It turned out to be Barbara Lake; for, of course, I went in directly, and found out. I never heard a voice that went so well with mine." If Miss Marjoribanks did not go into raptures over the contralto on its own merits, it was not from any jealousy, of which, indeed, she was incapable, but simply because its adaptation to her own seemed to her by far its most interesting quality, and indeed almost the sole claim it had to consideration from the world. "Barbara Lake?" said the Doctor. "There's something in that. If you can do her any good or get her teaching or anything--I have a regard for poor Lake, poor little fellow! He's kept up wonderfully since his wife died; and nobody expected it of him," Dr Marjoribanks continued, with a momentary dreary recollection of the time when the poor woman took farewell of her children, which indeed was the next day after that on which his own wife, who had nobody in particular to take farewell of, faded out of her useless life. "Yes," said Lucilla, "I mean her to come here and sing with me; but, then, one needs to organise a little first. I am nineteen--how long is it since you were married, papa?" "Two-and-twenty years," said the Doctor abruptly. He did not observe the strangeness of the question, because he had been thinking for the moment of his wife, and perhaps his face was a trifle graver than usual, though neither of his young companions thought of remarking it. To be sure he was not a young man even when he married; but, on the whole, perhaps something more than this perfect comfort and respectability, and those nice little dinners, had seemed to shine on his horizon when he brought home his incapable bride.