"Yet I am plucky about most things, too.

Still I don't like to hear the elements quarrelling together--they are too much in earnest about it--and no person can pacify them." Zara smiled, and gently repeated her request to me for some music--a request in which Mrs.Challoner and her daughters eagerly joined.

As I went to the piano I thought of Edgar Allan Poe's exquisite poem: "In Heaven a spirit doth dwell, Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars, so legends tell, Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice--all mute." As I poised my fingers above the keys of the instrument, another long, low, ominous roll of thunder swept up from the distance and made the room tremble.
"Play--play, for goodness' sake!" exclaimed Mrs.Everard; "and then we shall not be obliged to fix our attention on the approaching storm!" I played a few soft opening arpeggio passages, while Zara seated herself in an easy-chair near the window, and the other ladies arranged themselves on sofas and ottomans to their satisfaction.

The room was exceedingly close: and the scent of the flowers that were placed about in profusion was almost too sweet and overpowering.
"And they say (the starry choir And the other listening things) That Israfeli's fire Is owing to that lyre, By which lie sits and sings,-- The trembling living wire Of those unusual strings." How these verses haunted me! With them floating in my mind, I played--losing myself in mazes of melody, and travelling harmoniously in and out of the different keys with that sense of perfect joy known only to those who can improvise with ease, and catch the unwritten music of nature, which always appeals most strongly to emotions that are unspoilt by contact with the world, and which are quick to respond to what is purely instinctive art.

I soon became thoroughly absorbed, and forgot that there were any persons present.