Keene had been calling on the Tresilyans one evening, in the official capacity of bearer of a verbal message from Mrs. Molyneux. It was the simplest one imaginable; but as graver embassadors have done before him, liking his quarters he dallied over his mission. (If Geneva, instead of Paris, were chosen for the meeting of a Congress, would not several knotty points be decided much more speedily?) When, at last, all was settled, it seemed very natural that he should petition Cecil for "just one song;" and you know what that always comes to. Royston never would "turn over" if he could possibly avoid it; he considered it a willful waste of advantages, for the strain on his attention, slight as it might be, quite spoiled his appreciation of the melody. Perhaps he was right. As a rule, if one wanted to discover the one person about whose approval the fair _cantatrice_ is most solicitous, it would be well to look _not_ immediately behind her ivory shoulder. At all events, he had made his peace with Miss Tresilyan on this point long ago. So he drew his arm-chair up near the piano, but out of her sight as she sang, and sat watching her intently through his half-closed eyelids. I marvel not that in so many legends of witchery and seduction since the _Odyssey_ the [Greek: _thespesie aoide_] has borne its part. "But," the Wanderer might say, replying against Circe's warning, "have we not learned prudence and self-command from Athene, the chaste Tritonid? Have not ten years under shield before Troy, and a thousand leagues of seafaring, made our hearts as hard as our hands, and our ears deaf to the charms of song? Thus much of wisdom, at least, hath come with grizzled hair, that we may mock at temptations that might have won us when our cheeks were in their down. O most divinely fair of goddesses! have we not resisted your own enchantments? Shall we go forth scathless from AEaea to perish on the Isle of the Sirens?" But the low, green hills are already on the weather beam, and we are aware of a sweet weird chant that steals over the water like a living thing, and smooths the ripple where it passes. How fares it with our philosophic Laertiades? Those signs look strangely unlike incitements to greater speed; and what mean those struggles to get loose? Well, perhaps, for the hero that the good hemp holds firm, and that Peribates and Eurylochus spring up to strengthen his bonds; well, that the wax seals fast the ears of those sturdy old sea-dogs who stretch to their oars till Ocean grows hoary behind the blades; or nobler bones might soon be added to the myriads that lie bleaching in the meadow, half hidden by its flowers. It was not, then, so very trivial, the counsel that she gave in parting kindness-- [Greek: _Kirke euplokamos, deine theos audeessa_.] Are we in our generation wiser than the "man of many wiles?" Dinner is over, and every one is going out into the pleasance, to listen to the nightingales.