'Yes, do,' said Dr. Arthur. 'Prim's nerves are sadly out of tune.' 'I don't think my nerves are ever out of tune,' Prim answered gently. 'Not when they have work to do,' said Rollo. 'Nor ever at another time, that I know.' 'But you can sing, if I don't want tuning.' 'Certainly. But in all questions that are not of duty, you have to consider the effect.' The lazy deliberateness with which this was spoken, was at least as provoking as it was comical. Wych Hazel from her place was silently watching them all, her eyes going from one speaker to the other with wide open consideration. Now, her lips just parted and curled and came back to their gravity. 'Go on—will you?' said Dr. Arthur,—'I have a perplexing question to decide before to-morrow; and it rather helps me to have somebody make a noise.' 'If you would tell us the question, perhaps it would help us make a noise,' said Dane with the same placid gravity. 'Profound!'—said Dr. Arthur. 'Well—give us something in that line.' 'What line?' 'Original and scientific observation.' 'That's your line. I was thinking—how would you define "a noise"?' 'Extraneous sounds come pretty near it, with me,' said Dr. Arthur. 'But you wouldn't call music "a noise," ' said Primrose. 'Wouldn't I!—When Miss Powder has wandered off alone to the Sands of Dee and doesn't want to be interrupted!—' 'But what you would call a noise, isn't music, Arthur. Now Hazel, I wish you would just sing one of your little songs and confound him!' Primrose spoke entreatingly. 'I should be more happy to be confounded—in that way—than I can tell,' said the doctor. 'Thank you,' Hazel answered laughing; 'my songs are quite too small to do that for anybody. And besides, as I once heard somebody say,—"I was not asked first." ' 'Your are asked to be the first,' said Rollo. 'I remember one night at Newport—' Dr. Arthur began. Hazel interrupted him. 'You need not remember anything about Newport!' 'Need I not?' said the doctor smiling. 'Agreed!—I like this much better. But one night when you were singing to Kitty Fisher, in her room, _she_ had secretly posted an ambush underneath the window. It would be hard to forget those songs, or to cease wishing to hear them again.' 'Kitty Fisher!—' 'You will certainly do for Prim what you would do for Kitty Fisher,' remarked Rollo. 'I suspect I did it for myself then,' said Hazel; and "for herself' was the way she liked best to sing. But if he wished it— So without more ado the song came. Not one of her gay little carols this time, but a wild Border lament; inimitably sweet, tender, and true. As effortless in the giving, as forgetful of auditors, as if she had been a veritable bird among the branches; for Wych Hazel always lost herself in her music.