LITMIR.BIZ

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she carried it to a corner of the sofa.

      Mdlle. de Kervoyou possessed to the full the quality, as rare as it is undefinable, of believing absolutely in the sincerity of those with whom she came into contact.

      Consequently Zella, abnormally sensitive to atmosphere, read aloud with perfect self-confidence the dreary philosophy in the midst of which moved her central figure, an aged Polish violinist, an exile in London.

      "Oh, Zella! it is very sad."

      "Is it? I do not think I meant it to be, exactly— only true to life."

      This was exactly what Mdlle. de Kervoyou did not think it, but she only said gently:

      "You are very young to have such a sad idea of life."

      Zella looked broodingly into the fire and felt delighted. This was exactly what she wanted Tante Stéphanie to think. But her satisfaction was dashed a moment later.

      "But, after all, it really is the young who see things so darkly. You will learn to look for the silver lining, Zella."

      Zella hoped that she successfully masked her annoyance by deepening the intensity of her gaze as she replied quietly:

      "Perhaps. It is not of a silver lining to my own clouds that I was thinking, but to those of the poor, the oppressed, the starving."

      Mdlle. de Kervoyou laid down her work. She had given up her beautiful Church embroidery, and sewed instead for the mothers and babies in the village.

      "Mon enfant cherié," she said very earnestly, "indeed I understand you, and it is very good that you should think of the poor. But you will be able to give much help later on. And you will certainly write books, to give people pleasure and help them. in that way."

      "Do you think I shall?" said Zella in quite a different tone, one of shy, eager pleasure and interest.

      "But yes," exclaimed Tante Stéphanie, delighted. "It is very clever to have thought of all that at your age, about that poor old Count Stanilas. I liked very much the part about his music, when the tunes seem to take him back to his own country again and his old home. It is most touching and beautiful."

      "Oh, Tante Stéphanie, I'm so glad! But tell me what you think of it as a whole; remember you promised to tell me truly," urged Zella unwisely.

      Tante Stéphanie hesitated.

      "I think, perhaps, it is a little discouraging," she said at last, " when you say so much about the sordidness of life, and that there is no real happiness anywhere. And I don't think, somehow, he would have said to the little girl, when he was teaching her the violin, 'There is no God but Chance, and no Chance but God.'"

      "Why,not?" said Zella, who had regarded the mot in question as a profound epigram.

      Perhaps I do not quite see what it means," said her aunt diffidently, " but I am sure it was not quite the thing to say to a child. Besides, if she had repeated it to her parents, as she most likely would, they would not have liked it at all, and the poor Count might have lost his pupil."

      Zella had no reply.

      Mdlle. de Kervoyou looked at her rather wistfully. "But I love the part about his music," she repeated, "it is charming."

      Zella revived.

      "Of course anything about music appeals to me very deeply," she murmured.

      "Of course," assented Mdlle. de Kervoyou, who happened to be absolutely unmusical.

      But her ready acceptance of Zella's statement was perhaps indirectly responsible for Zella's next convictions as to her means of self-expression.

      The Polish count was laid aside, after a final outburst of realism in which every item of his meagre supper had been described with a minuteness that extended from the glistening oil of silvery and crumbling sardines to the white irregularity of a lump of salt. At which stage Zella perceived that the book was on such a scale as to need a lifetime's work before she could hope to complete it, and thereupon characteristically decided to wait until she could give more time to it.

      She played the piano.

      All through the spring, Villetswood was haunted by fragments of Debussy, renderings of Tchaikowsky and minor passages from the works of Sibelius. Zella retained all her old facility for reading at sight, and there was little she did not attempt.

      Louis, in the evening, sometimes asked her for his old favourite, Haydn, but for the most part smoked in silence during her performances, and said "Thank you, mignonne," without comment.

      Stéphanie looked at the music pages from time to time, and said admiringly:

      "It looks terribly hard. You must be very musical indeed, Zella, to play such difficult things."

      Zella, who had sometimes felt an unacknowledged doubt as to her being really so very musical, gradually became convinced that Tante Stéphanie must be right.

      She played more furiously than ever.

      As the spring turned into summer and the evenings grew longer, Zella found much enjoyment in opening the window at twilight, rejecting any offer of lamp or candles, and straying into minor fragments of Bach or the first half-dozen bars of the " Moonlight Sonata." It gave her Zella revived.

      " Of course anything about music appeals to me very deeply," she murmured.

      " Of course," assented Mdlle. de Kervoyou, who happened to be absolutely unmusical. B But her ready acceptance of Zella's statement was perhaps indirectly responsible for Zella's next convictions as to her means of self-expression.

      The Polish count was laid aside, after a final outburst of realism in which every item of his meagre supper had Been described with a minuteness that extended from the listening oil of silvery and crumbling sardines to the Bhite irregularity of a lump of salt. At which stage Zella perceived that the book was on such a scale as to Bed a lifetime's work before she could hope to complete B, and thereupon characteristically decided to wait until Be could give more time to it. m She played the piano.

      All through the spring, Villetswood was haunted by fragments of Debussy, renderings of Tchaikowsky and minor passages from the works of Sibelius. Zella retained all her old facility for reading at sight, and there was little she did not attempt.

      Louis, in the evening, sometimes asked her for his old favourite, Haydn, but for the most part smoked in silence during her performances, and said" Thank you, mignonne," without comment.

      Stéphanie looked at the music pages from time to time, and said admiringly:

      "It looks terribly hard. You must be very musical indeed, Zella, to play such difficult things."

      Zella, who had sometimes felt an unacknowledged doubt as to her being really so very musical, gradually became convinced that Tante Stéphanie must be right.

      She played more furiously than ever.

      As the spring turned into summer and the evenings grew longer, Zella found much enjoyment in opening the window at twilight, rejecting any offer of lamp or candles, and straying into minor fragments of Bach or the first half-dozen bars of the "Moonlight Sonata." It gave her great satisfaction to note how much pleasure she derived from performances. She had found her true vocation, that form of self-expression so earnestly sought for, and which should reveal to her her own truest highest self. So absorbed was Zella in interpreting her own emotions that she seldom or never had attention to spare for any possible interpretation of the composer's meaning.

      This, however, mattered the less since she was always her own best audience, with Stéphanie de Kervoyou, who listened to Zella with an admiration only second to Zella's own.

      These illusions endured until the beginning of the summer, when James Lloyd-Evans came down to spend a few days at Villetswood.

      Zella wondered, with a mixture of hope and trepidation, whether Tante Stéphanie would have the good sense to allude to her niece's playing, in view of the fact that James was known, by tradition at least, since he was never heard to metion the subject, to

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