Rose laughed and let him fan her, leaning from his seat behind with the devoted air he always assumed in public; but her wounded feelings were not soothed, and she continued to frown at the stout man on the left, who had dared to say with a shrug and a glance at Phebe's next piece, "That young woman can no more sing this Italian thing than she can fly, and they ought not to let her attempt it." Phebe did, however; and suddenly changed the stout man's opinion by singing it grandly; for the consciousness of her first failure pricked her pride and spurred her to do her best with the calm sort of determination which conquers fear, fires ambition, and changes defeat to success. She looked steadily at Rose now, or the flushed, intent face beside her; and throwing all her soul into the task let her voice ring out like a silver clarion, filling the great hall and setting the hearers' blood a-tingle with the exulting strain. That settled Phebe's fate as cantatrice; for the applause was genuine and spontaneous this time, and broke out again and again with the generous desire to atone for former coldness. But she would not return, and the shadow of the great organ seemed to have swallowed her up; for no eye could find her, no pleasant clamor win her back. "Now I can die content," said Rose, beaming with heart-felt satisfaction; while Archie looked steadfastly at his programme, trying to keep his face in order, and the rest of the family assumed a triumphant air, as if _they_ had never doubted from the first. "Very well, indeed," said the stout man, with an approving nod. "Quite promising for a beginner. Shouldn't wonder if in time they made a second Cary or Kellogg of her." "Now you'll forgive him, won't you?" murmured Charlie, in his cousin's ear. "Yes; and I'd like to pat him on the head. But take warning and never judge by first appearances again," whispered Rose, at peace now with all mankind. Phebe's last song was another ballad; for she meant to devote her talent to that much neglected but always attractive branch of her art. It was a great surprise, therefore, to all but one person in the hall, when, instead of singing "Auld Robin Grey," she placed herself at the piano, and, with a smiling glance over her shoulder at the children, broke out in the old bird-song which first won Rose. But the chirping, twittering, and cooing were now the burden to three verses of a charming little song, full of spring-time and the awakening life that makes it lovely. A rippling accompaniment flowed through it all, and a burst of delighted laughter from the children filled up the first pause with a fitting answer to the voices that seemed calling to them from the vernal woods.