While she was thus employed, however, Mr. Cartwright was equally active in turning over the leaves of his pocket companion; and before Miss Torrington had made her selection, he placed the tiny manuscript volume open upon the instrument, saying, "There, my dear young lady! this is an air, and these are words which we may all listen to with equal innocence and delight." Rosalind was provoked; but every one in the room had already crowded round the piano, and having no inclination to enter upon any discussion, she sat down prepared to sing whatever was placed before her. The air was undeniably a popular one, being no other than "Fly not yet!" which, as all the world knows, has been performed to millions of delighted listeners, in lofty halls and tiny drawing-rooms, and, moreover, ground upon every hand-organ in Great Britain for many years past. Rosalind ran her eyes over the words, which, in fair feminine characters, were written beneath the notes as follow: Fly not yet! 'Tis just the hour When prayerful Christians own the power That, inly beaming with new light, Begins to sanctify the night For maids who love the moon. Oh, pray!--oh, pray! 'Tis but to bless these hours of shade That pious songs and hymns are made; For now, their holy ardour glowing, Sets the soul's emotion flowing. Oh, pray!--oh, pray! Prayer so seldom breathes a strain So sweet as this, that, oh! 'tis pain To check its voice too soon. Oh, pray!--oh, pray! An expression of almost awful indignation rose to the eyes of Rosalind. "Do you give me this, sir," she said, "as a jest?--or do you propose that I should sing it as an act of devotion?" Mr. Cartwright withdrew the little book and immediately returned it to his pocket. "I am sorry, Miss Torrington, that you should have asked me such a question," he replied with a kind of gentle severity which might have led almost any hearer to think him in the right. "I had hoped that my ministry at Wrexhill, short as it has been, could not have left it a matter of doubt whether, in speaking of singing or prayer, I was in jest?" "Nevertheless, sir," rejoined Rosalind, "it does to me appear like a jest, and a very indecent one too, thus to imagine that an air long familiar to all as the vehicle of words as full of levity as of poetry can be on the sudden converted into an accompaniment to a solemn invocation to prayer--uttered, too, in the form of a vile parody." "I think that a very few words may be able to prove to you the sophistry of such an argument," returned the vicar. "You will allow, I believe, that this air is very generally known to all classes.--Is it not so?" Rosalind bowed her assent. "Well, then, let me go a step farther, and ask whether the words originally set to this air are not likely to be recalled by hearing it?" "Beyond all doubt."