No voice that I have ever heard quite equalled Mary’s in sweetness, even in familiar talk. Soft and tender, it was yet singularly clear, though marked by a certain patrician absence of that exaggerated articulation so characteristic of other communities, where not the _norma loquendi_ of gentle ancestors is the touchstone of speech, but the printed word, and the spelling-book, and the unlovely precision of the free school. But now that she was uttering a wail over her own crushed heart, and, in unison therewith, Byron’s passionate lament over the dead glories of the Greece of Thermopylæ and of Marathon, the tremulous fervor of her vibrating tones was touching beyond description. Two or three fair heads had clustered near hers to catch her low-breathed words; and when, turning to Mr. Poythress with a certain triumphant enthusiasm in her soulful eyes, she, with a slight but impassioned gesture, ended with the words, “’Tis Greece, but living Greece no more,” there was a sense of choking in more than one snowy throat. As for Mrs. Carter,—sympathetic soul,—I am told that there were actually tears in her eyes. “Upon my word,” began Mr. Poythress, ready to yield. Perhaps Mary heard what he said as he re-defined his position; but his words can be of no interest to the reader. “See,” mused she, “what an easy air he has assumed towards Lucy! And Lucy! how matter-of-fact! Any one could see at half a glance that they were acknowledged lovers. See with what an air of content he looks about him! There, he is exchanging glances with Alice; and she understands him, of course. She is telling Mr. Frobisher that they are engaged. Ah, he glanced at me, then, and so furtively! No wonder he averts his eyes when they meet mine! Yet even yesterday I thought I saw in his look—well, well; _that_ is all over.” Alice, on the contrary: “See, he can’t keep his eyes off her! He is just dying to say something to her; and it will be to the point. Ah, Uncle Tom has put himself just between us.” And she leaned forward so as to put Charley almost behind her back, but went on talking, all the same, in a low voice: “How could those girls have thought that he was in love with Lucy or Lucy in love with him!” “Horrible!” ejaculated Charley, in a voice that startled Alice. She turned and looked at him. Had she turned more quickly, she might have caught a different expression on his face. As it was, he was gazing out upon the River with a stony calm upon his features. “What did you say?” asked she, beginning to doubt her ears. “‘Horrible?’” “Who? I?” And the gray eyes met the hazel without blinking. “Did you not say that the idea of the Don and Lucy being lovers was horrible?” “Very likely. Of late I have been capable of saying anything.” “What did you mean?” “If I said it,—which I don’t admit; and if I meant anything,—which, likely enough, I did not—” “‘Horrible’ is so unlike you.” “Now you flatter me.” “Tell me, goose.”