It is to be feared he was thinking of this more than of the music as he played through King in F, which was the service for that morning. And he left Purcell to play the voluntary and stole out unobserved, though it was indecorous, before the congregation had dispersed. He threaded through the dim aisles and the cloisters, before Wykeham had time to call attention to him by hobbling after him with his jangling keys. He, like Lottie, had resolved to give himself no time to think of it, to do it at once. Ridsdale!--What a vain fool he was, talking about giving up opera and taking to oratorios! What could he do with her, if he had got her? His manager had rejected Lottie, and gone off after that voice at Milan. What fools they all were! and what would be the advantage to Ridsdale of having this voice untrained on his hands? What could he do with her? but there was nothing she might not do under the guidance of the Signor. It was still early when he reached the little house: Lottie had not attempted to go out this morning to see the Signor, she was too much shaken by her escapade of last night. How could she have done it? She, who had loathed the idea of becoming a singer! She had made a singer of herself by her own act and deed, and she felt the full meaning of what she had done. She had got up early, unable in her excitement to sleep, and tingling still with the consequences of this strange, unpremeditated, unintended self-betrayal. What was it that had made her do it? She had got her work, and she had placed herself near the window--not so near as to be seen, yet near enough to be able to glance out and see anyone who might be coming that way. There were things to be done in the house, domestic operations of more importance than the needlework. But Lottie said to herself that they could wait--oh, they could wait! In the meantime what was best was, that she should be ready in case anyone called, ready to see anybody that might come over the road across the sunshine, in the morning quiet. “Good night; but only till to-morrow”--what was it that had conveyed to her the consciousness that he was there? The Abbey had been dark--she had not been thinking of him--certainly she had not known that he was looked for; and yet, what but the sense that he was there would have made her do what she had done? She had sung unwillingly, unwittingly, in spite of herself, because he was there. It all seemed quite plain to Lottie. He it was (she thought) who had first made her aware that this gift of hers was anything worth thinking of; he it was who had first given her the supreme pleasure of consciousness, who had shown to her the happiness she could bestow. Her voice (as she thought), if after all it was really worth anything, if it was the thing he thought it, the thing it sounded like last night--belonged to him. It was his spiritually; he had discovered it, and revealed it to herself. She had not been aware what