“_Tout voir, tout entendre, tout oublier_,” whispered Lady Katrine to Mr. Churchill, as she stooped to assist him in the search for a music-book--“_Tout voir, tout entendre, tout oublier_, should be the motto adopted by all married people.” Lady Castlefort seemed distressed, and turned over the leaves in such a flutter that she could not find anything, and she rose, in spite of all entreaties, leaving the place to her sister, who was, she said, “so much better a musician and not so foolishly nervous.” Lady Castlefort said her “voice always went away when she was at all--” There it ended as far as words went; but she sighed, and retired so gracefully, that all the gentlemen pitied her. There is one moment in which ill-nature sincerely repents--the moment when it sees pity felt for its victim. Horace followed Lady Castlefort to the ottoman, on which she sank. Beauclerc remained leaning on the back of Lady Katrine’s chair, but without seeming to hear what she said or sung. After some time Mr. Churchill, not finding his attentions well received, or weary of paying them, quitted Lady Castlefort but sat down by Helen; and in a voice to be heard by her, but by no one else, he said-- “What a relief!--I thought I should never get away!” Then, favoured by a loud bravura of Lady Katrine’s, he went on--“That beauty, between you and me, is something of a bore--she--I don’t mean the lady who is now screaming--she should always sing. Heaven blessed her with song, not sense--but here one is made so fastidious!” He sighed, and for some moments seemed to be given up to the duet which Lady Katrine and an officer were performing; and then exclaimed, but so that Helen only could hear,--“Merciful Heaven! how often one wishes one had no ears: that Captain Jones must be the son of Stentor, and that lady!--if angels sometimes saw themselves in a looking-glass when singing--there would be peace upon earth.” Helen, not liking to be the secret receiver of his contraband good things, was rising to change her place, when softly detaining her, he said, “Do not be afraid, no danger--trust me, for I have studied under Talma.” “What can you mean?” “I mean,” continued he, “that Talma taught me the secret of his dying scenes--how every syllable of his dying words might be heard to the furthest part of the audience; and I--give me credit for my ingenuity--know how, by reversing the art, to be perfectly inaudible at ten paces’ distance, and yet, I trust, perfectly intelligible, always, to you.” Helen now rose decidedly, and retreated to a table at the other side of the room, and turned over some books that lay there--she took up a volume of the novel Lady Castlefort had been reading--“Love unquestionable.” She was surprised to find it instantly, gently, but decidedly drawn from her hand: she looked up--it was Beauclerc. “I beg your pardon, Miss Stanley, but----” “Thank you! thank you!” said Helen; “you need not beg my pardon.”