It is only like the birds, but we cannot understand the words they say, just as you cannot understand Norwegian.

Listen,--here is a little ballad you will all know," and she played a soft prelude, while her voice, subdued to a plaintive murmur, rippled out in the dainty verses of Sainte-Beuve-- "Sur ma lyre, l'autre fois Dans un bois, Ma main preludait a peine; Une colombe descend En passant, Blanche sur le luth d'ebene" "Mais au lieu d'accords touchants, De doux chants, La colombe gemissante Me demande par pitie Sa moitie Sa moitie loin d'elle absente!" She sang this seriously and sweetly till she came to the last three lines, when, catching Errington's earnest gaze, her voice quivered and her cheeks flushed.

She rose from the piano as soon as she had finished, and said to the _bonde_, who had been watching her with proud and gratified looks-- "It is growing late, father.

We must say good-bye to our friends and return home." "Not yet!" eagerly implored Sir Philip.

"Come up on deck,--we will have coffee there, and afterwards you shall leave us when you will." Gueldmar acquiesced in this arrangement, before his daughter had time to raise any objection, and they all went on deck, where a comfortable lounging chair was placed for Thelma, facing the most gorgeous portion of the glowing sky, which on this evening was like a moving mass of molten gold, split asunder here and there by angry ragged-looking rifts of crimson.