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Neville!" with a sensation of the keenest pleasure.
It was a sort of benediction on the whole day. A proud man was he when
she asked him to give her lessons on the organ,--and never did he forget
the first time he heard her sing. He was playing an exquisite "Ave
Maria," by Stradella, and she, standing by her husband's side was
listening, when she suddenly exclaimed--
"Why, we used to sing that at Arles!"--and her rich, round voice pealed
forth clear, solemn, and sweet, following with pure steadiness the
sustained notes of the organ. Neville's heart thrilled,--he heard her
with a sort of breathless wonder and rapture, and when she ceased, it
seemed as though heaven had closed upon him.
"One cannot praise such a voice as that!" he said. "It would be a kind
of sacrilege. It is divine!"
After this, many were the pleasant musical evenings they all passed
together in the grand old library, and,--as Mrs. Rush-Marvelle had so
indignantly told her husband,--no visitors were invited to the Manor
during that winter.


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