Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/322

  glided into the lovely aria, "O Rest in the Lord." It was all new and wonderful to Ranald. He did not dream that such majesty and sweetness could be expressed in music. He sat silent with eyes looking far away, and face alight with the joy that filled his soul.

"Oh, thanks, very much," murmured the lieutenant, when Kate had finished. "Lovely thing that aria, don't you know?"

"Very nice," echoed Mr. Sims, "and so beautifully done, too."

Ranald looked from one to the other in indignant surprise, and then turning away from them to Kate, said, in a tone almost of command: "Sing it again."

"I'll sing something else," she said. "Did you ever hear—"

"No, I never heard anything at all like that," interrupted Ranald. "Sing some more like the last."

The deep feeling showing in his face and in his tone touched Kate.

"How would this do?" she replied. "It is a little high for me, but I'll try."

She played a few introductory chords, and then began that sweetest bit of the greatest of all the oratorios "He shall Feed His Flock." And from that passed into the soul-moving "He Was Despised" from the same noble work. The music suited the range and quality of her voice perfectly, and she sang with her heart thrilling in response to the passionate feeling in the dark eyes fixed upon her face. She had never sung to any one who listened as Ranald now listened to her. She forgot the others. She was