The pause before the last word gave to it an added emphasis, and Hope let her hands fall on her lap with a sigh of pent-up emotion. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears; but there were no signs of emotion in the audience. "How sweetly pretty!" cried Truda in the very accents which the singer had heard in imagination. "I say! Quite touching, isn't it?" said the youth with the fair moustache. There was a babel of "Thanks--thanks awfully!" and Aunt Loftus said graciously, "You must be tired, my dear. Come and sit down. We must really give you a rest." For five minutes afterwards Hope was the centre of an admiring throng, and tasted the bitter-sweet of an applause which failed to appreciate the true merit of her work. It was pleasant enough, so far as it went, but it left a disappointed ache behind, and she was not sorry when Truda asserted her rights, and by means of a trick with a lead pencil, a piece of paper, and a hand-glass succeeded once more in gathering the company round herself. Hope remained on the outside of the circle, a little tired after her exertions, and thankful for a moment's breathing-space. As she stood she became conscious of a steady gaze levelled upon her from the other end of the room. Mr Merrilies had not taken up a position with the other men, but was leaning against the mantelpiece, studying her face with a grave, intent questioning. For a moment each looked deep into the other's eyes; the rest of the figures in the room seemed to fade away, and these two saw each other as they really were, shorn of all the pretence and artificiality of society. "It is true," he said to himself: "her mind is as lovely as her face. She could not have composed that song--she could not have sung it as she did--if she were not everything that is sweet and good. _Hope_! I wonder--I wonder if--at last--" He raised his arm from the mantelpiece and walked forward to join the group by the table, while Hope shrank still farther into the shadow. Her cheeks flushed, her heart beat with an unaccustomed quickening. "I believe," she said to herself--"I believe he understood!" CHAPTER ELEVEN. NEW FRIENDSHIPS. Three days passed, and Hope thoroughly enjoyed the novel experience of life in a crowded and constantly changing household. Certain of the guests were fixtures, among whom were numbered Truda Bennett, Mr Merrilies, and the fair and facetious Reggie Blake; but for the rest, every day saw fresh arrivals, fresh departures, all involving a certain amount of extra work to the busy servants. Hope could not help realising the truth of Madge's shrewd surmise that she had been asked to make herself of use, for her aunt did not foil to claim her services a dozen times a day. She arranged the flowers, decorated the dinner-table, answered business letters, made up and unpacked parcels, and, in short, discharged all the little duties which ordinarily fall upon the daughter of the house.