Lancaster's Choice

"Now give me your arm," she said, turning toward the door.

"But, my lady, where are you going?" cried Elise.

"To the drawing-room," curtly.

"You'll catch your death of cold," whimpered the maid.

"What is that to you?" flashed the dowager, sharply. "Come along."

And clinging to the arm of Elise, and groaning at every step with the reawakened pain in her shoulder, Lady Lancaster took up her march to the drawing-room, her flowered gown trailing majestically behind her, going forth as one goes to conquer, for she was intent on the instant and utter annihilation, metaphorically speaking, of the daring plebeian child who had so coolly transgressed her commands.

Leonora had never got beyond the picture-gallery and the drawing-room. The great, black, ebony piano had fascinated her. She could not tear herself away.

"Oh, Aunt West, my fingers ache to touch the keys!"

"Can you play, dear?" asked her aunt, with one of her kind, indulgent smiles.

"Only let me show you," said the girl. "There is no one to hear, is there, aunt?"

"No, there is no one," said Mrs. West, reflectively. "The maids are all in the other wing. This part of the house is empty. I dare say it will be no harm for you to amuse yourself a little while."

She threw back the magnificent embroidered cover, and raised the lid herself. Leonora's eyes beamed under their long lashes at sight of the gleaming pearl keys.

"Oh!" she said, under her breath, and sat down. She ran her fingers lightly along the keys. A shower of melody seemed to fall from them. The silver-sweet notes fell soft and swift as rain-drops from the flying fingers, and full of subtle harmony and delicious sound. She played on and on, and when the exquisite aria came to a close Mrs. West gazed at her in amazement.

"Oh, my dear, what music!" she cried. "I do not believe that any of the ladies who come here can play as well as that."

"Can not Lady Adela?"

"No, I am sure she can not," Mrs. West answered, decidedly. "But shall we go now?"

"Presently, Aunt West. I may stay just a little longer, may I not?"

"If you like to stay alone. I have just thought of some duties I have to perform. I will go back and leave you here. If I come in half an hour, will you be ready?"

"Oh, yes, thank you, aunt," she answered, and ran her fingers lovingly over the keys, little thinking that the strong, full, joyous notes were awakening Nemesis from her nap upstairs.

CHAPTER XXX

While Lady Lancaster was finishing her toilet upstairs, Leonora finished her fugue in the drawing-room. Then she played a little morceau from Bach. Then she began to sing. The dowager, coming along the corridor outside with stealthy, cat-like steps, was amazed to catch the passionate words of a little gem from "Iolanthe," sung in a voice as sweet and clear and well trained as many a professional could boast.

"An opera song! Upon my word! What sort of a girl is it, anyhow?" ejaculated the dowager, in astonishment; and in spite of her haste and anger, she could not help pausing to hear the words of the tender love song:

"None shall part us from each other,
All in all to each are we;
All in all to one another,
I to thee, and thou to me!
Thou the tree, and I the flower—
Thou the idol, I the throng—
Thou the day, and I the hour—
Thou the singer, I the song!
Thou the stream, and I the willow—
Thou the sculptor, I the clay—
Thou the ocean, I the billow—
Thou the sunrise, I the day!"

"Upon my word, that must be a remarkable child," Lady Lancaster said to herself; and, like Elise, she peeped around the door to get a secret view of the daring transgressor.

After she had looked she stepped back a pace in amazement. She was more astonished than she had ever been in her life.

The child she had come to see was nowhere. She had come down the stairs with a distinct intention of "boxing the little brat's ears for her temerity." She stared in amazement at what she saw.

And yet it was not a wonderful sight, but only a very pleasing one—unless my lady had been hard to please—only a graceful, girlish figure in deep black, with a line of white at the slender throat, where the narrow linen collar was fastened with a neat bar of jet—only a fair young face, with its profile turned toward the door, and two small white hands guiltless of rings or other adorning, save their own dimpled beauty, straying over the keys with a loving touch, as if all her soul was in her song.

Lady Lancaster caught her breath with a gasp as if someone had thrown cold water over her. She turned to the maid; exclaiming, in a shrill whisper:

"Elise, that is not West's American niece. You are trying to deceive me!"

"No, my lady, I am not. It is Miss West. Is she not a pretty girl?"

"But I thought," said my lady, ignoring the question, "that West's niece was a child. I am sure she told me so."

"I do not know what she told you; but this is certainly Leonora West," reiterated the maid; and then her mistress stepped over the threshold into the room, the long train of her stiff brocade rustling behind her as she walked with an air of withering majesty upon her wrinkled face.

Leonora, hearing the ominous sound, glanced around with a startled air, her hands fell from the keys, and she sprung to her feet, and stood waiting the lady's approach—not humbly, not nervously, but with that calm dignity and self-possession that seemed characteristic of her, and that seemed to belong peculiarly to her as fragrance belongs to a flower.

Lady Lancaster was not propitiated by that peculiar air. To her angry eyes it savored of defiance.

She walked on across the thick, soft pile of the velvet carpet until she was directly in front of the waiting girl, and then Leonora lifted her eyes with an air of gentle curiosity, and dropped her a graceful courtesy.

"Impertinent! I have a great mind to slap her, anyhow!" the old lady said, irately, to herself; but she kept down her spleen with a great effort of will, and said, with ironical politeness:

"You are Leonora West, the housekeeper's niece, I presume?"

"Yes, madame, that is my name," Leonora answered, with another graceful bow. "And you are—Mrs. Lancaster!"

"Lady Lancaster, if you please," flashed the dowager, haughtily.

"Ah?" smoothly. "Lady Lancaster, I beg your pardon. You see we have no titles in America. A plain Mrs. is a title of honor in itself, and when one comes to England one is apt to forget the requirements of rank."

A graceful, simple explanation enough; but Elise, who kept close beside her mistress, saw a roguish gleam in the blue-gray eyes shaded by the drooping black lashes.

"She is laughing in her sleeve at my lady," thought the astute maid; but she did not resent the girlish impertinence in her mind. Lady Lancaster snubbed her handmaid so often that Elise rather enjoyed seeing her snubbed in her turn.

Lady Lancaster dimly felt something in the suave, silver-sweet tones that vaguely angered her.

"You are very excusable, Miss West," she said, tartly and insultingly. "One has to pardon much to American impudence and ignorance."

Leonora looked at her with the full gaze of her clear orbs.