And it was not unnoticed by Lady Aberfeldie that at the closing word of each verse the eyes of the pair unconsciously met. Ere Eveline could be prevented, she had acceded to Cameron's softly uttered desire that she would sing anything for _him_; and she frankly did so, throwing into her voice the thrill and tenderness that are sure to come into a girl's utterances when singing to the man she loves. The heart of Cameron responded to this mysterious influence, and, as the girl regarded him furtively from time to time, she thought, with his crisp wavy hair, his clear grey eyes, general expression and bearing, he looked every inch what he was, the descendant of that Sir Evan Cameron of Lochiel who met Cromwell's men in combat under the shadow of Ben Nevis; yet to other eyes he seemed just a good sample of an infantryman who had across his forehead the genuine sunmark of his craft, made under the line of his forage-cap by a scorching tropical sun. And now when Lady Aberfeldie, to stop any more musical performances between these two, prevailed upon Olive to replace her cousin, she was quick enough to detect that the former, displeased or piqued by Allan's apparent attention to Ruby Logan, swept past him with the most subtle little touch of disdain in the carriage of her handsome head. Now Cameron had once more to give place to pudgy little Sir Paget, who--puffing out his chest and jerking forward his bald shining head--began to do his best to make himself pleasing to Eveline, while the latter, under her mother's watchful eye, was compelled to listen and appear to act with compliance and complacency; and poor Eveline, like Olive, often felt with some compunction that her mother's general bearing--which a certain quiet yet lofty dignity seemed never to forsake--was more calculated to inspire respect than love. And Cameron, while he found himself talking rather absently on regimental matters with Lord Aberfeldie, as he looked at Eveline from time to time, was thinking sadly in his honest heart, 'Oh, what madness it is in me to love her as I do, and how wicked if I lure her into loving me! Can I expect her ambitious mother or her calculating father ever to view with favour one so penniless as I am? Would it be honourable in me to profit by her girlish prepossession in my favour, and so preclude her from reaping those advantages of wealth, position, and rank which she is entitled to expect, and to which her parents looked forward? and alas! as the wife of Sir Paget--if such be her fate--poor Eveline will be lost for ever to me.' His breast felt torn by such thoughts as these; and, sooth to say, it is as often amid the splendour and luxury of life, as amid its squalor and poverty, that some of its bitterest tragedies are acted out. But now the party began to break up--the ladies to seek their respective apartments, and the gentlemen to adjourn for a time to the smoking-room.