Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/199

Rh one is happy, does it not! Just as a bird breaks out into song, because he feels that life is good and he loves it. I had singing lessons at Pimpernel once, and the man did his very best with me, but at last he gave it up. One must be bad, must one not, before a singing master washes his hands of you? About two years ago, Milly (my sister, you know) and I were at a little party at the Vicarage, and I stood up to sing a duet with her. It was a foolhardy thing to do, but I had practised it for weeks; and when I opened my mouth there was not a sound to be heard—literally not a sound. Perhaps it was as well—but oh! I was so bitterly ashamed. I think I sat down and turned my face to the wall and wept."

"And did your sister sing it alone?" asks Mr. Vasher, laughing.

"She sang another instead!"

"It is very odd," says Paul, "but I know your voice quite well—I am sure I have heard it before; and your face seems familiar to me."

"People are so alike," I say evasively, turning my head away from his keen regard. Somehow I do not want him to recollect me just yet. "Nature makes all her people in sets, aud mine is a common pattern."

"I think not," he says slowly; "for I never saw but one person a bit like you before, and that was Helen Adair."

I see his mind trembling on the brink of a discovery, so I hastily hold up my poppy wreath for bis inspection.

"Look!" I say, "is it not bizarre, extraordinary? Did not that make you smile?"

He takes it from my hand and turns it round. "It looked very pretty on," he says. "Did you make it, yourself, Nell?"

"You know who I am: you knew it all along?" I say, starting back.