But one day she was turning over her music, among which were a number of quaint old English songs and madrigals, which she and Maurice had jointly owned long ago at Cacouna, when she came upon one the words of which she had been used to laugh at, much to the annoyance of her fellow-singers.

She had a half remembrance of them, and turned the pages to look if they were really so absurd.

The music she knew well, and how the voices blended in the quaint pathetic harmony.
"Out alas! my faith is ever true, Yet will she never rue, Nor grant me any grace.
I sit and sigh, I weep, I faint, I die, While she alone refuseth sympathy." She shut the music up, and would have said, if anybody had asked her, that she had no patience with such foolish laments, even in poetry; but, nevertheless, the verse stayed in her memory, haunted her fancy perpetually, and seemed like a living voice in her ears-- "Out alas! my faith is ever true." She cared no more for singing, for every song she liked was associated with Maurice, and each one seemed now to have the same burden; and when she played, it was no longer gay airs, or even the wonderful 'Morceaux de Salon,' of incredible noise and difficulty, which had been required of her as musical exhibitions, but always some melancholy andante or reverie which seemed to come to her fingers without choice or intention.
One day when she had gone for her solitary walk, and Mrs.Costello all alone was lying on the sofa, trying to read, but really considering with some uneasiness the condition of their affairs, Madame Everaert knocked at the door.
She brought with her a fresh bunch of flowers just bought in the market, but she was as usual overflowing with talk.
"It is extremely hot," she said, fanning herself with her pocket handkerchief, "and I met mademoiselle going out.

It is excessively hot." Mrs.Costello looked uneasy.
"Do you think it is too hot to be out ?" she asked.
"No.

Perhaps not.