Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/228

226 conquest Mrs. Trefusis made herself for the necessities of the moment. All in vain, the drawing-room seemed, as some one says of the mountain-tops, "dedicated to immortal silence." An able general is never without a resource, and Mrs. Trefusis opened the piano; and the could-nots and would-nots, and colds and hoarsenesses, made for a few moments a very respectable dialogue, which ended with Emily's sitting down to the instrument; and Emily did sing most exquisitely. She had that clear, bird-like voice which is divided between sadness and sweetness, whose pathos of mere sound fills the heart with that vague melancholy which defies analysis; and her articulation was as perfect as her expression. Some one said of her singing, that it was the music of the nightingale, gifted with human words and human feelings. A shadow fell on the book from which she was singing; and at the close she turned round to receive the painful politeness of Mr. Macneil. Heaven help me from the soi-disant flattery of those who compliment as if it were a duty, not a pleasure, who make a speech as if they expected you to make a curtsy at the conclusion; and while giving you what they politely inform