The rain cleared off in the afternoon and a bright glint of sunshine shone through the slowly dispersing clouds, enabling the children of the village choir to put on their best frocks and hats for the important function to which Cicely had summoned them. There was great excitement among these little people. That they should be specially asked to sing to Miss Vancourt was to them an unexpected and unprecedented honour, and filled them with speechless delight and pride. They were all very shy and nervous, however, and it was with quite a trembling awe that they scraped their feet on the polished oak floors of the Manor, and dragged them hesitatingly and timidly along into the morning room where Maryllia lay peacefully resting, and awaiting their approach. Her nurses had attired her freshly and becomingly, and had wrapped her in soft pale rose cashmere with delicate ribbons of the same hue tying it about her, while her lovely hair, loosely knotted on the top of her head, was caught together by a comb edged with pink coral which gave just the contrasting touch of colour to the gold-brown curls. She turned a smiling happy face on the children as they entered, and to Miss Eden and her young assistant, Susie Prescott, she held out her hand.

"It is so good of you to humour me in my fancy!" she said; "I loved the little hymn you all sang on the Sunday I came to church with my friends--don't you remember?--and I want to hear it again. I came in late to service that day, didn't I?--yes!--it was so wrong of me! But I should never do it again if I had the chance. Unfortunately we are always sorry for our wrong-doings too late!" She smiled again, and in answer to murmured words of sympathy from Miss Eden, and the sight of tears in the eyes of Susie Prescott, made haste to say--"Oh no!--I'm not in any pain just now. You need not think that. I am just helpless--that's all. But I've got all my reasoning faculties back, thank God!--and my sight has been spared. I can read and write, and enjoy music,--so you see how many blessings are still left to me! Will you ask the children to begin now, please? There is not a piano in this room,--but Cicely will play the accompaniment on the old spinet--it's quite in tune. And she will sing with you."

In another moment they were all grouped round the ancient instrument of Charles the Second's day, and Cicely, keeping her hands well pressed on the jingling ivory keys, managed to evoke from them something like a faint, far-off organ-like sound. Falteringly at first, and then more clearly and steadily, as Cicely's full round voice assisted them, the children sang-"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me down to lie In pleasant fields where the lilies grow, And the river runneth by."




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