"Of course, I had other books. For example, one I see on your shelves there." He rose, and took down the "Songs before Sunrise." "Miss Lind," he said, "I am afraid you will laugh at me; but I have been haunted with the notion that you have been teaching Lord Evelyn how to read poetry, or that he has been unconsciously imitating you. I heard him repeat some passages from 'The Pilgrims,' and I was convinced he was reproducing something he had heard from you. Well--I am almost ashamed to ask you--" A touch of embarrassment appeared on the girl's face, and she glanced at her father. "Yes, certainly, Natalie; why not?" "Well," she said, lightly, "I cannot read if I am stared at. You must remain as you are." She took the book from him, and passed to the other side of the room, so that she was behind them both. There was silence for an instant or two as she turned over the leaves. Then the silence was broken; and if Brand was instantly assured that his surmise was correct, he also knew that here was a more pathetic cadence--a prouder ring--than any that Lord Evelyn had thrown into the lines. She read at random--a passage here, a passage there--but always it seemed to him that the voice was the voice of a herald proclaiming the new awakening of the world--the evil terrors of the night departing--the sunlight of liberty and right and justice beginning to shine over the sea. And these appeals to England! "Oh thou, clothed round with raiment of white waves, Thy brave brows lightening through the gray wet air, Thou, lulled with sea-sounds of a thousand caves, And lit with sea-shine to thy inland lair, Whose freedom clothed the naked souls of slaves And stripped the muffled souls of tyrants bare, Oh, by the centuries of thy glorious graves, By the live light of the earth that was thy care, Live, thou must not be dead, Live; let thy armed head Lift itself up to sunward and the fair Daylight of time and man, Thine head republican, With the same splendor on thine helmless hair That in his eyes kept up a light Who on thy glory gazed away their sacred sight." The cry there was in this voice! Surely his heart answered, "Oh Milton's land, what ails thee to be dead!" Was it in this very room, he wondered, that the old Polish refugee was used to lift up his trembling hand and bid his compatriots drink to "the white chalk-line beyond the sea?" How could he forget, as he and she sat together that morning, and gazed across the blue waters to the far and sunlit line of coast, the light that shone on her face as she said, "If I were English, how proud I should be of England!" And this England of her veneration and her love--did it not contain some, at least, who would answer to her appeal?