One evening, when we were both with her, it had grown very sultry and breathless. "Isn't it very close, dear Mrs. Percivale?" she said. I rose to get a fan; and Marion, leaving the window as if moved by a sudden resolve, went and opened the piano. Mrs. Cromwell made a hasty motion, as if she must prevent her. But, such was my faith in my friend's soul as well as heart, in her divine taste as well as her human faculty, that I ventured to lay my hand on Mrs. Cromwell's. It was enough for sweetness like hers: she yielded instantly, and lay still, evidently nerving herself to suffer. But the first movement stole so "soft and soullike" on her ear, trembling as it were on the border-land between sound and silence, that she missed the pain she expected, and found only the pleasure she looked not for. Marion's hands made the instrument sigh and sing, not merely as with a human voice, but as with a human soul. Her own voice next evolved itself from the dim uncertainty, in sweet proportions and delicate modulations, stealing its way into the heart, to set first one chord, then another, vibrating, until the whole soul was filled with responses. If I add that her articulation was as nearly perfect as the act of singing will permit, my reader may well believe that a song of hers would do what a song might. Where she got the song she then sung, she always avoids telling me. I had told her all I knew and understood concerning Mrs. Cromwell, and have my suspicions. This is the song:-- "I fancy I hear a whisper As of leaves in a gentle air: Is it wrong, I wonder, to fancy It may be the tree up there?-- The tree that heals the nations, Growing amidst the street, And dropping, for who will gather, Its apples at their feet? "I fancy I hear a rushing As of waters down a slope: Is it wrong, I wonder, to fancy It may be the river of hope? The river of crystal waters That flows from the very throne, And runs through the street of the city With a softly jubilant tone? "I fancy a twilight round me, And a wandering of the breeze, With a hush in that high city, And a going in the trees. But I know there will be no night there,-- No coming and going day; For the holy face of the Father Will be perfect light alway. "I could do without the darkness, And better without the sun; But, oh, I should like a twilight After the day was done! Would he lay his hand on his forehead, On his hair as white as wool, And shine one hour through his fingers, Till the shadow had made me cool? "But the thought is very foolish: If that face I did but see, All else would be all forgotten,-- River and twilight and tree; I should seek, I should care, for nothing, Beholding his countenance; And fear only to lose one glimmer By one single sideway glance.