"Ay, I have learned to sing two or three songs, old ballads of the countryside, for though my father like it little, Henry takes a pleasure in hearing them. I will sing you one if you wish it." And when I bade her do so, she laid down her work, which she had taken up again, and broke into a curious plaintive melody. I cannot describe it. 'Twould be as easy to describe the singing of the wind in the tree-tops. It minded me, I cannot tell how, of a mountain burn, falling into pools and rippling over little shoals of gravel. Now 'twas full and strong, and now 'twas so eerie and wild that it was more like a curlew's note than any human thing. The story was about a knight who sailed to Norway on some king's errand and never returned, and of his lady who waited long days at home, weeping for him who should never come back to her. I did not understand it fully, for 'twas in an old patois of the country, but I could feel its beauty. When she had finished the tears stood in my eyes, and I thought of the friends I had left, whom I might see no more. But when I looked at her, to my amazement, there was no sign of feeling in her face. "'Tis a song I have sung often," she said, "but I do not like it. 'Tis no better than the ringing of a bell at a funeral." "Then," said I, wishing to make her cheerful, "I will sing you a gay song of my own country. The folk dance to it on the Sunday nights at Rohaine, when blind René plays the fiddle." So I broke into the "May song," with its lilting refrain. Anne listened intently, her face full of pleasure, and at the second verse she began to beat the tune with her foot. She, poor thing, had never danced, had never felt the ecstasy of motion; but since all mankind is alike in nature, her blood stirred at the tune. So I sang her another chanson, this time an old love ballad, and then again a war song. But by this time the darkness was growing around us, so we must needs re-enter the house; and as I followed I could hear her humming the choruses with a curious delight. "So ho, Mistress Anne," thought I, "you are not the little country mouse that I had thought you, but as full of spirit as a caged hawk. Faith, the town would make a brave lass of you, were you but there!" From this hour I may date the beginning of the better understanding--I might almost call it friendship--between the two of us. She had been bred among moorland solitudes, and her sole companions had been solemn praying folk; yet, to my wonder, I found in her a nature loving gayety and mirth, songs and bright colors--a grace which her grave deportment did but the more set off. So she came soon to look at me with a kindly face, doing little acts of kindness every now and then in some way or other, which I took to be the return which she desired to make for my clumsy efforts to please her. CHAPTER VII. A DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.