"Sing something to us, Hope," said Mrs Loftus imperiously. "Sing some of your own songs.--Miss Charrington has composed some charming little things," she explained to the company at large, who murmured politely in response. "Compose? How wonderful of you! How do you manage to do it?" queried Truda eagerly, while the fair youth pulled his moustache and looked at Hope as if she were a wild animal escaped from the Zoo, and Uncle Loftus began humming what he fondly supposed to be the air of "The Song of Sleep" to his companion on the sofa. Plainly, the best thing to do was to begin at once before the situation grew more embarrassing, so Hope broke into the accompaniment of song number one, a simple but taking little production which had been published two years before. It was greeted with applause, so spontaneous and genuine that it could not fail to be inspiriting. Hope forgot to be nervous, and sang "Pack Clouds Away" in her best style, sweetly, smoothly, and with that distinctness of enunciation which is so rare a charm. More applause followed, more exclamations of appreciation, more queries as to how she did it, and then Uncle Loftus must needs begin humming again, and put in a request for "The sleepy one, you know--the one you wrote to order. That is the gem of the collection, in my opinion. We should like to hear the sleepy one, my dear." Now, as it happened, Hope was by no means anxious to grant this request, for the idea which Miss Caldecott had so slightly suggested had appealed very strongly to her sensitive nature, and she had put into it her best work, with the hope that when listening to it its hearers might feel something of the same thrill, the same earnestness, which she had experienced in its composition. She had never been able to go through it unmoved, and it seemed almost sacrilege to sing it in this room full of noisy strangers, who would miss its point, and at best pronounce it "sweetly pretty." She tried to protest, to declare that she had already monopolised the piano too long, but it was of no avail. The more she hung back, the more eager became her audience. "The sooner begun, the sooner it's done," she said to herself, with a sigh of resignation, and began to sing forthwith. Theo had clothed the idea in simple and touching words, and Hope had seconded her with something akin to inspiration; the last few lines, with their subtle change of key, containing an effect at once charming and pathetic. "So to us all comes the end of the day," Bang Hope softly--so softly that the crackle of the firewood sounded loudly in the ears of the listeners: "So to us all comes the end of the day. When our playmates are lost, and our toys cast away; Tired children of earth, when the shadows fall deep, The Father in Heaven will grant to us--sleep!"