She held out her hand to me. Mine touched hers and a thrill ran and sang through my fingers, through my body to my brain; the thrill of a strange sensation I had never before experienced. I gazed at her without speaking. She raised her eyes and mine held hers for the briefest of moments. To me it seemed as if a world of doubt and uncertainty were being swept away and I were looking into eyes I had known through all the ages. Then her golden lashes dropped and hid those wonderful eyes from me. Impulsively, yet fully knowing what I did, I raised her hand and touched the back of her fingers with my lips. She did not draw her hand away. She smiled across to me ever so sweetly and turned from me into the darkness. Not for an hour did I wake from my reveries. The spell of new influences was upon me; the moon, climbing up among the scudding night-clouds, never seemed so bright before and the phosphorescent glow and silver streaks on the water never so beautiful. A light travelled across the parlour over the way. I saw Miss Grant seat herself by the piano, and soon the whole air became charged with the softest, sweetest cadences,--elusive, faint and fairylike. How I enjoyed them! How old Jake on the cliffs must have enjoyed them! What an artist the lady was, and how she excelled herself that evening! I lay in a transport of pleasure, hoping that the music might never cease; but, alas for such vain hoping,--it whispered and died away, leaving behind it only the stillness of the night, the sighing of the wind in the tops of the tall creaking firs, the chirping of the crickets under the stones and the call of the night bird to her mate. I raised my eyes across to the cottage. In the lamplight, I could discern the figure of the musician. She was seated on the piano stool, with her hands clasped in front of her and gazing out through the window into the darkness of the night. Surely it was a night when hypnotising influences were at work with all of us, for I had not yet seen Jake return; he was evidently still somewhere out on the cliffs communing with the spirits that were in the air. Suddenly I observed a movement in the room over the way. Miss Grant had roused herself from her dreaming. She raised her hand and put the fingers I had kissed to her own lips. Then she kissed both her hands to the outside world. She lowered the light of the lamp until only the faintest glow was visible. She ran her fingers over the piano keys in a ripple of simple harmonies. Sweet and clear came her voice in singing. I caught the lilt of the music and I caught the words of the song:-- A maid there was in the North Coun-tree, A shy lit-tle, sweet lit-tle maid was she. She wished and she sighed for she knew-not-who, So long as he loved her ten-der-lee; And day by day as the long-ing grow, Her spin-ning-wheel whirred and the threads wove through. It whirred, It whirred, It whirred and the threads wove through.