At length, however, it occurred to her that her selections might not be pleasing to her listener, and turning about, her hands dropped from the key-board, as she asked: “Are you getting tired of it, Miss Leonard?” A long-drawn sigh fell upon her ear, and she saw that she looked pale and very sad. “No—no; but can you not sing something?” she asked, in a more kindly tone than Salome had ever heard her use. “Oh, yes, if you prefer vocal music,” she answered obligingly. She sang a couple of simple ballads, and then, all at once, broke forth into that air from the opera of “The Bohemian Girl:” “When other lips and other hearts Their tale of love shall tell, In language whose excess imparts The power they feel so well, There may, perhaps, in such a scene Some recollection be Of days that have as happy been, And you’ll remember me. “When coldness or deceit shall slight The beauty now they prize, And deem it but a faded light That beams within your eyes; When hollow hearts shall wear a mask ’Twill break your own to see, In such a moment I but ask That you’ll remember me.” Salome had reached this last line, when a hollow groan burst upon her ear, and a shaking voice, shrill with agony, cried out: “Stop! stop! for mercy’s sake, stop!” Salome sprang from the stool, and turned affrighted toward her companion, to find her sitting with her face buried in her hands and her form shaking with a nervous tremor. “O Miss Leonard! what have I done?” she cried. “Have I wounded you by singing a song that has aroused painful memories? Forgive me—pray forgive me! I would not have done it for the world, if I had known.” She comprehended the situation at once. She knew that that song must be linked in some way with the great sorrow that had fallen upon her in her early life; that it had recalled and aroused all her agony over those blighted hopes, of which she had heard. “Children like you do not know what trouble is,” Miss Leonard said sharply, for she was suffering keenly, and she forgot how young she had been when her great sorrow had fallen upon her. “Ah,” she went on bitterly, “when you have made an idol of some one and found that idol worthless clay; when you have built the hopes of a life-time upon the truth and constancy of one human being, and had them ruthlessly betrayed and blighted at the very moment they were upon the point of being realized; when death has left you friendless; when spite and malice have turned your nature to gall—then you may talk of being unhappy.” “I have—O Miss Leonard, I have known something of such bitter experiences, and if my sorrow is so much fresher and more recent than yours do you not think I feel it as keenly?” sobbed Salome.