What did he say? Lottie remembered most of the words for years and years. When she heard the sound of them again in other conversations, in sentences that had no relation to her, from other people, and even addressed to other people, she would hold her breath. Foolish girl! they were well-worn words, such as perhaps every woman possessing such a gift, or even a much smaller gift than Lottie’s, has heard to weariness; but the most common approbation, which afterwards becomes the mere accompaniment and petty murmur of existence, one time in one’s life is divine--as he told her her voice was, as he let her infer she too was, and everything about her. Lottie was not used to anything like flattery. Even in the best of circumstances, fathers and brothers are seldom enthusiastic; and kind Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, though she had given her countenance to Rowley’s lessons, did not in the least conceal that she was bored by them; and the tenor was a great deal too much occupied with his own voice, and the compliments that had been paid to him, to leave him much time for complimenting his pupil. It was true that the Signor’s wish to teach her was of itself the essence of flattery; but he never had given her any credit for her singing, and always had seen the faults of it. So that it was Rollo who had first revealed to her that heaven of praise which is so doubly sweet to the neophyte when it is supposed to be not her excellence, but his love, which inspires it. Lottie had no defence against the enthusiasm, the admiration, the rhapsodies of her companion. If they were excessive, that was not because he was failing in truth, but only abounding in love. So she thought. The very atmosphere around her turned into happiness. Her eyes were dazzled with it. She could not look at him nor lift her face except in momentary sudden glances, so much was the air full of this suffused, subdued, but penetrating glory. And, strangely enough, though he did not feel half so much as she supposed him to feel, Rollo himself was moved by this something in the air which rayed out from her exquisite dawn of bliss and of love. He said naturally a great deal more than he intended--and, what was more wonderful, he felt a great deal more than he could have supposed possible--and without the least purpose or thought, dropped moment by moment deeper and deeper into that curious kind of rapture which is tolerably expressed by the phrase, falling in love. Reason had nothing to do with it, nor intention; and he had not come here driven by a passion which was more strong than he was, as Lottie thought. But, nevertheless, whether it was the magnetic influence of that sentiment in her which he had called forth without knowing it, and which now touched him with sympathetic life: or the more commonplace result of her beauty, and of their close propinquity, and her loneliness, and the generous impulse of protection and kindness that was in him: certain it is that