“So was Adrienne’s marriage for her, but she is different from me. She didn’t take it kindly. Oh, I don’t mean she objected! My daughter is far too well bred, too well governed, for that. She is superior to me in understanding and everything else, but she was very _triste_ all the time poor Le Noir lived, and when he died, after two years of marriage, Adrienne appeared relieved. That was ten years ago, and I believe she intends to make a love marriage the next time.” Then, catching a glimpse of Lyddon shambling across the hall to the old study, Madame Isabey darted after him with an activity and grace singularly contrasted with her size and shape. “Come here, you Mr. Lyddon, you Englishman,” she cried. “Tell Madame Neville Tremaine and me what you think of love marriages.” “It is a subject upon which I never dare to think,” replied Lyddon in his scholarly French. “That’s the way with you blessed English,” cried Madame Isabey laughing. “You never think, you only act, you English. I am telling Madame Neville that there are worse things than love marriages, and as for all this racket about her husband remaining in the Union Army, tra la la.” However astounded Angela might be by Madame Isabey’s frank confessions, her goodness of heart and her desire to make herself acceptable was obvious, nor was she without charms and interest. When they went into the drawing-room, Colonel Tremaine asked Adrienne if she played. “Yes,” she replied, smiling, and seating herself at the piano, swept away the music on the rack, and ran her fingers softly over the keys. Her playing was to Angela as great a revelation as Isabey’s singing. It was so finished, so full of art, so unlike the noisy transcriptions of operas and descriptive pieces to which Angela was accustomed. She listened, thrilled, but with a sinking heart. Each of her accomplishments seemed to disappear, one by one, in the light of Adrienne’s superiority. When Adrienne had finished playing, Madame Isabey cried: “Oh, you should hear Adrienne and Philip sing together the most charming duets imaginable! My child, sing for our friends.” Adrienne acquiesced readily and gracefully. She was in no wise averse to showing her gifts before this young girl already a wife, whom Philip Isabey had admired so openly. Adrienne’s voice was not remarkable, but her method, her feeling, her deep musical intelligence made her songs charming. Then to complete Angela’s mortification, as it were, Mrs. Tremaine asked her to play. Angela, with the courage which would lead a forlorn hope, went to the piano and very wisely chose to do what she could best do. She played a waltz with perfect rhythm, but she had nothing of the phrasing, the tone color, the power of expression which marked the finished musician.