"You must come to me to-morrow morning, Agnes, while I am at breakfast, at ten o'clock remember, for then I am alone.... And you must come prepared, my child, to talk to me about yourself, ... for I can't understand it at all ... and I never choose to be puzzled longer than I can help it upon any subject.... But listen to my monsters! If they are not presuming to be noisy behind my back!... Then lull me, lull me, charming air, My senses wrap in wonder sweet. Like snow on wool thy footsteps are, Soft as a spirit's are thy feet,"-- exclaimed the old lady in a whisper close to the ear of Agnes...." Sing to me again, my child, and I will send a message to them in words borrowed from the famous epitaph on Juan Cabeca, ... 'Hold your tongues, ye calves!'"... and turning herself round she beckoned to a servant who had just entered with refreshments, saying to him in a voice which might have been heard by most of those in the apartment, "Set down the tray, Johnstone; nobody wants it; ... and go round the room begging they will all be silent while this lady sings." It was in the middle of the song which followed that Sir Edward and Lady Stephenson returned. The door opened without Agnes being aware of it; and her rich voice swelling to a note at the top of its compass, and sustaining it with a power given to few, filled the chamber with a glorious volume of sound that held Colonel Hubert's sister transfixed as she was about to enter. Unconscious that there was another of the race near her, whom she would have almost breathed her soul away to please, Agnes warbled on, nor raised her eyes from the page before her till the strain was ended. Then she looked up and perceived Lady Stephenson, who had noiselessly crept round to ascertain whom the gifted minstrel might be, immediately opposite, and looking at her with a most gratifying expression of surprise and pleasure. A very cordial greeting and shaking of hands followed; while Lady Elizabeth, her hand resting on her new favourite's shoulder, said almost in a whisper,-- "Who would have thought, Emily, that I should come at last to take lessons from you as to the selection of my natural curiosities?... But you have made a hit that does you immortal honour ... this little singing bird is worth all the monsters I ever got together.... Your ladyship need not look so grave, however," she added in a voice still lower. "I do not intend to treat her as if she were stolen from the Zoological Gardens.... She is to come to me to-morrow morning, and then we shall know all about her.... I wish your fastidious brother were here!... Do you remember what he said the other day about some miss he had heard at Clifton? I fancy we might have a chance of correcting his outrageous judgment concerning her.... What think you?"