"Will you take some tea, Monsieur Horace?" said a voice behind him. He turned round. The grey daylight was fading into grey dusk, afternoon tea had been brought in, and Madelon was standing by him with a cup in her hand. "Aunt Barbara has gone out, and will not be home till dinner-time," she added, as she returned to the tea-table and fireside. "Then you and I will drink tea together, Madelon," said Graham, seating himself in an arm-chair opposite to her. "Where have you been all this afternoon? Have you been out too?" "I have been to a singing-class. I generally go twice a-week when we are in town." "And do you like it?" "Yes, I like it very much." So much they said, and then a silence ensued. Madelon drank her tea, and Graham sat looking at her. Yes, a change had certainly come over her--this Madelon, who came and went so quietly, with a certain harmonious grace in every movement-- this Madelon, who sometimes smiled, but rarely laughed, who spoke little, and then with an air of vague weariness and indifference--this was not the little impetuous, warm-hearted Madelon he remembered, who had clung to him in her childish sorrow, who had turned from him in her childish anger, who in her very wilfulness, in her very abandonment to the passion of the moment, had been so winning and loveable. It was not merely that she was not gay--gaiety was an idea that he had never associated with Madelon; it had always been a sad little face that had come before him when he had thought of her; but in all her sadness, there had been an animation and spring, an eagerness and effusion in the child, that seemed wholly wanting in the girl. It was as if a subtle shadow had crept over her, toning down every characteristic light to its own grey monotonous tint. Madelon had not the smallest suspicion of what was passing in her companion's mind. During all these years, in whatever other respects she might have altered, the attitude of her heart towards him had never changed. What he had always been to her, he was now; the time that had elapsed since they parted had but intensified and deepened her old feeling towards him--that was all. He had been in her thoughts day and night; in a thousand ways she had worked, she had striven, that he might find her improved when he came home, less ignorant, less unworthy, than the little girl he had parted with. His return had been the one point to which all her hopes had been directed; and, poor child, with a little unconscious egotism, she took it for granted that just then she occupied almost as large a share in Graham's mind as he did in hers. He had always been so good, so kind to her, he must surely be glad to see her again, almost as glad as she was to see him. She, on her side, was ready to go on just where they had left off; and yet now, when for the first time they were alone together, a sort of shyness had taken possession of her.