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150 150 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. has nothing to say to us. We must admit, however, that they are our worst moments." " I am not in that state now," said Isabel. " On the con- trary, I should be so glad if you would play something more." " If it will give you pleasure most willingly." And this obliging person took her place again, and struck a few chords, while Isabel sat down nearer the instrument. Suddenly the stranger stopped, with her hands on the keys, half-turning and looking over her shoulder at the girl. She was forty years old, and she was not pretty; but she had a delightful expression. " Excuse me," she said ; " but are you the niece the young American 1 " " I am my aunt's niece," said Isabel, with nawetS. The lady at the piano sat still a moment longer, looking over her shoulder with her charming smile. " That's very well," she said, " we are compatriots." And then she began to play. " Ah, then she is not French," Isabel murmured ; and as the opposite supposition had made her interesting, it might have seemed that this revelation would have diminished her effective- ness. But such was not the fact ; for Isabel, as she listened to the music, found much stimulus to conjecture in the fact that an American should so strongly resemble a foreign woman. Her companion played in the same manner as before, softly and solemnly, and while she played the shadows deepened in the room. The autumn twilight gathered in, and from her place Isabel could see the rain, which had now begun in earnest, washing the cold-looking lawn, and the wind shaking the great trees. At last, when the music had ceased, the lady got up, and, coming to her auditor, smiling, before Isabel had time to thank her again, said " I am very glad you have come^ back ; I have heard a great deal about you." Isabel thought her a very attractive person ; but she never- theless said, with a certain abruptness, in answer to this speech " From whom have you heard about me 1 " The stranger hesitated a single moment, and then " From your uncle," she answered. " I have been here three days, and the first day he let me come and pay him a visit in his room. Then he talked constantly of you." " As you didn't know me, that must have bored you." " It made me want to know you. All the more that since then your aunt being so much with Mr. Touchett I have been