Lady Dora was compelled to obey the summons; to do otherwise, would be to betray herself. She rose; but the proud lip was compressed--the nostril dilated with annoyance. "I have spoken to Mr. Tremenhere," she said, in as indifferent a tone as she could command, and she seated herself on the sofa beside Lady Lysson. Tremenhere bowed--he could scarcely conceal a smile of satisfaction. Every triumph to himself, was one to his little wife--his ever present magnet. "I have had the pleasure of standing beside Lady Dora Vaughan's music-stool while she drew forth some of the sweet strains she so well commands at will," he said. Lady Dora fixed her haughty eyes upon him undauntedly, to read the epigram, if one were intended--but he looked upon her with a cordial, friendly smile. "He is no fool," she thought--"is he impervious to every attack? I _hate_ this man," she could not think even; "I despise him."
"Then, you wretches!" continued Lady Lysson, "why did you not take some of the weight of a hostess' burthen off my shoulders, and enliven the dreadful half-hour before dinner with some music? Mr. Tremenhere, I command you to take me back to sweet Florence on one of those melodies none can sing like yourself."
There was an irresistible charm of nature about Lady Lysson, before which art, constraint, and mere worldly formality, fled abashed, and nature came forth from every breast around her, to play with its fellow. Tremenhere threw off the cold, stern teaching of the world, and laughed and talked again, the happy Miles of his father's home. Even Lady Dora unbent, and condescended to ask him for one of the Tuscan airs he sang so well. Unhesitatingly he turned round the stool on which he sat, without rising, and running his hand over the keys, as one with old familiar friends, he commenced, not with stentorian lungs, but in tones scarcely to reach the fireside, so subdued they were, and yet certainly to touch the heart of all who could hear them. He had nearly concluded the second verse, when one of the ladies at the fire called Lady Lysson, to decide some disputed point of genealogical origin. "One instant--pray, don't cease!" she cried, rising to obey the summons. Lady Dora would have given worlds to accompany her, but it could not, with common politeness, have been accomplished; so she opened her fan, and, with eyes fixed on the group at the fire, sat perfectly indifferent, in seeming, to Miles and his _ariette_. The instant Lady Lysson rose, he, without even a pause, ran his fingers over the ivory, changed the key and air, having ceased singing in the middle of his verse; and, in a still lower tone, as if breathing to himself, but perfectly distinctly, commenced the hackneyed song of "My love and cottage near Rochelle." It was so pointedly done, so _internally_ sung, (if we may so express it,) that she could not but feel to whom he addressed it, and her fair, neglected cousin Minnie stood, in her mind's eye, on the shore, watching the receding vessel.