"I am sorry to say he was obliged to be on a committee, and I feel so lonely without him, half my pleasure is gone," replied Lady Glenmore. The men looked at one another--the ladies tittered; there was a pause, and the speaker felt sadly embarrassed, she knew not why. Lady Tenderden whispered to her as they leaned over the boat-side: "That was a very injudicious speech of your's, my dear; you must learn not to _affiché_ these tendernesses; for if you really feel them nobody cares, and people in general only imagine you affect them by way of being singular." Poor Lady Glenmore made no answer; but was again convinced that she should never like a society in which she was to be so perfectly unnatural. Mr. Leslie Winyard, who saw at a single glance the truth and freshness of Lady Glenmore's character, was certain that it would not do to attempt to gain her good graces by any common-place mode of attack, such as flattery of the person, or intoxicating representations of power, dissipation, and pleasure. He therefore took an opportunity, when the rest of the party were engaged in their own conversation, to approach Lady Glenmore, and having found a seat next to her, he commenced a discourse which he conceived would be more to her taste. Music afforded him an opening; it was a subject on which he spoke elegantly and well, and she listened with pleased attention. "After all," he observed, "where science and taste have done their utmost to produce perfection, and without these guides certainly nothing will do; even after they have lent their assistance, there is a third ingredient which is _given_ only, and cannot be _acquired_, without which there will ever remain a flatness, an _ineffectiveness_, if I may so speak, which renders the whole vapid and inefficient--I mean feeling; and there, indeed, you must know, Lady Glenmore, that you are not wanting." He fixed his eyes on her with an expression which made her blush; but she replied smiling: "How can _you_ know that, Mr. Winyard?" "Did I not hear you a short time ago sing '_Sempre piu t'amo_'?" "Oh," she replied, "you judge by that?" "And can I appeal to a more convincing proof of what I assert? But if I needed any other proof, surely the words, and the look which accompanied the words, when you expressed your regret at Lord Glenmore not being of the party to-day, would be an undoubted corroboration of the fact." "Oh, that was natural," she said; "it would have been odd could I have done otherwise. But real feeling is a much deeper seated quality than can be judged of by singing a song, or a passing impulse, and I do not own that you can know any thing about me or my feelings."