What are you carrying that bag for, Roger ?" "Armstrong's going up to town for a few days." "How horrid!" said Miss Rosalind, with vexation in her voice; "just while Jill and I are feeling so lonely, cooped up here like nuns, with not a soul to talk to, and knowing we're in everybody's way." "Armstrong has a sad enough reason for going," said Roger; "but I say, it's not very complimentary to me to say you've not a soul to talk to." The half-jesting petulance in Rosalind's face had given place to a look almost of pain as she held out her hand.
"Good-bye, Mr Armstrong," said she.

"I didn't know you were in trouble." "It _will_ be jolly when you come home," chimed in Jill.
Somehow in Mr Armstrong's ears, as he whirled along to town that afternoon, those two pretty farewells rang continuous changes.

When, at evening, he took his seat in the Dover express, they still followed him, now in solos, now in duet, now in restless fugue.

On the steamer they rose and fell with the uneasy waves and played in the whistling wind.
As he sped towards Paris, past the acacia hedges and poplar avenues, among foreign scenes, amidst the chatter of foreign tongues, surrounded by foreign faces, he still caught the sound of those two distant voices--one quiet and low, the other gay and piping; and even when, at last, he dropped asleep and forgot everything else, they joined in with the rattle of the rail to give him his lullaby.

Such are the freaks of which a sensitive musical ear is often the victim.
At Maxfield, meanwhile, he remained in the minds of one or two of the inmates.
The two young ladies, assisted by their cousin, and genially obstructed by their easy-going brother, proceeded seriously in the task of adorning the studio; now and then speculating about the absent tutor, and now and then feeling very dejected and lonely.