To sing to a whole roomful of people--she had never done it in her life.

It would be as bad as that nightmare fancy which used to haunt her, of being dragged forward to find the ten thousand eyes of a crowded theater all focused upon her, a sensation almost as horrible as being under a burning-glass.
"Oh no! not tonight.

I would much rather not.

Indeed, I can not sing." "May I beg to be allowed to deny that fact ?" said the gentleman--a young gentleman upon whose arm the hostess had crossed the room--of whom she, a stranger in Avonsbridge, knew only that he was a baronet and had fifteen thousand a year.
"Well, Sir Edwin, try if you can persuade her.

Mrs.Grey, let me present to you Sir Edwin Uniacke." It was so sudden, and the compulsion of the moment so extreme, that Christian stood calm as death--stood and bowed, and he bowed too, as in response to an ordinary introduction to a perfect stranger.