Mr. Sylvester had seated himself where he could see the distant figure of Paula, and leaning back in his chair, watched for the first startled response on her part. He was not disappointed. At the first note, he beheld her spirited head turn in a certain wondering surprise, followed presently by her whole quivering form, till he could perceive her face, upon which were the dawnings of a great delight, flush and pale by turns, until the climax of the melody being reached, she came slowly down the room, stretching out her hands like a child, and breathing heavily as if her ecstacy of joy in its impotence to adequately express itself, had caught an expression from pain. “O Mr. Sylvester!” was all she said as she reached that gentleman’s side; but Bertram Mandeville recognized the accents of an unfathomable appreciation in that simple exclamation, and struck into a grand old battle-song that had always made his own heart beat with something of the fire of ancient chivalry under its breastplate of modern broadcloth. “It is the voice of the thunder clouds when they marshal for battle!” exclaimed she at the conclusion. “I can hear the cry of a righteous struggle all through the sublime harmony.” “You are right; it is a war-song ancient as the time of battle-axes and spears,” quoth Bertram from his seat at the piano. “I thought I detected the flashing of steel,” returned she. “O what a world lies in those simple bits of ivory!” “Say rather in the fingers that sweep them,” uttered Mr. Sylvester. “You will not hear such music often.” “I am glad of that,” she cried simply, then in a quick conscious tone explained, “I mean that the hearing of such music makes an era in our life, a starting-point for thoughts that reach away into eternity; we could not bear such experiences often, it would confuse the spirit if not deaden its enjoyment. Or so it seems to me,” she added naively, glancing at her cousin who now came sweeping in from the further room, where she had been trying the effect of a change in the arrangement of two little pet monstrosities of Japanese ware. “What seems to you?” that lady inquired. “O, Mr. Mandeville’s playing? I beg pardon, Sylvester is the name by which you now wish to be addressed I suppose. Fine, isn’t it?” she rambled on all in the same tone while she cautiously hid an unfortunate gape of her rosy mouth behind the folds of her airy handkerchief. “Mr. Turner says the hiatus you have made in the musical world by leaving the concert room for the desk, can never be repaired,” she went on, supposedly to her nephew though she did not look his way, being at that instant engaged in sinking into her favorite chair.