"A witch!" She reflected upon it, as not quite knowing herself gratified or not. "I have always wanted to be like an English girl. I am very fond of Miss Forester." "You are just perfect. Don't try to change," said Denzil. "And you are a witch. I will tell you how I know. It is because strength is flooding back into me since I began to talk to you. I feel so much better I believe I could get up and walk round the garden." She leaned forward with the prettiest concern. "Oh, I don't think you are strong enough yet! Do be careful, won't you?" "I should do anything if you asked me like that! I am all the more certain that you are a witch." As he spoke, Miss Forester came out upon the veranda, and greeted him very kindly. She, too, was delighted to welcome an Englishman, and still more delighted to find that Mr. Vanston was undeniable--the right kind of Englishman. Moreover, she was pleased to see Nadia interested, for she had been moping considerably since the departure of Felix. "He says I am a witch," said the girl, half-pouting, half-laughing, to her friend, when the greetings were over. "What! Does he know that already, even before he has heard you sing?" was the amused reply. "Do you sing, Mademoiselle?" asked Denzil, wondering much how he ought to address a young Russian lady of good birth. "You shall sing to him this evening, when it is getting dark, and see whether he does not want to light candles, and scare away the creatures of the night," said Miss Forester. Denzil sighed with pleasure. Here were two delightful women ready to pet him. One of them more fascinating than he had believed a human woman could be. He was in a whirl. He hardly knew where he was, or what he said. He was sure that he said many things that in England he would never even think. Some of them were brilliant, he believed; but, as in a dream, he forgot one thing before the next bubbled up from the soil of his fancy. In the afternoon they took him driving, and Nadia sat by his side. It was more like flying upon a rosy cloud. And then, in the gloaming, as she had promised, Nadia sang. Denzil, as we know, was not an emotional person. But in the friendly dusk, his tears overflowed his eyes and slipped down his cheeks. This, indeed, was music. This, indeed, was magic. It was as though, until now, he had been insensate clay, and that some potent spell had brought him, in a flash, to life. He was not physically strong--let it be remembered in his defense. In this enchanted palace his life of former days ceased to exist. The white-robed girl, a miracle of slenderness, sang as she stood by the piano, and the light of the two wax candles by which Miss Forester played just gilded the edges of her outline and her features, as he sat in the dark distance gazing, gloating, trembling with the force of his feeling.