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"I beg your pardon, Mrs Lahter"

"She is very nervous--"

"I understand Being a coer, I should not have insisted One of the best singers I ever kneas so morbidly shy that on the platform she was an absolute failure Her vocal chords beca quite out of tune, and yet anificent"

The mother's voice was quite calm "It was not your fault, sir Sometimes she's this way, even when her best friends ask her to play That's why I fear she will never be able to perform in concerts--she is liable to these break-downs"

He was puzzled by so concealed in the mother's tone, and pained and deeply anxious to restore the peaceful charm of the home into which he had, in a sense, unbiddenly penetrated "I a you to tell her that --I was sincerely eager to hear her play Perhaps at another time, when she has coain I don't like to think that our acquaintance has ended thus--in discord May I not coain, now that I am, in a sense, explained?"

He blundered on froht line on the ular repression, sweet but firain I should really like your advice about Viola's future Can't you colad to do so At what hour?"

"At eight Perhaps she will be able to play for you then"

With a feeling of having blundered into ainterest in a pretty girl, Serviss retreated to his hotel across the river