Miss Grace Lambert! Who was she? The programme, of course, told nothing but her name, and when Miles Challoner turned to his companion for the purpose of inquiring further, he saw that his brows were knit, and his lips tightly clenched. Miles looked at Lord Sandilands in surprise, but forbore to question him. It was evident that the people in his immediate vicinity were equally unable to assuage his curiosity, as they were all talking and chattering together, and throwing glances towards the occupant of the platform, who stood totally unmoved. Then Sir Purcell Arne, looking round with a half-anxious, half-triumphant air, gave the customary three taps on his desk, and with a wave of his baton led the orchestra into the prelude. It was a simple English air--very simple--with a pathetic refrain, and out from the harmonious ensemble of the musicians came a soft sweet bird-like voice, beginning mellowly and low, then rising into a clear pure treble, a volume of lark-like utterance, a continuous ripple of sound, such as is seldom heard in human voice. Few notes had been uttered before their effect became visible on the whole assemblage--amongst the foreigners first; on the back benches, where were gathered the hirsute professionals honoured with the entrée to Lady Carabas' concerts, there was an immediate movement, a simultaneous pricking of ears and elevation of eyebrows, culminating into a general impossible-to-be-suppressed "A--h!" of intense delight. Then the enthusiasm spread. Impressible young girls with the nil-admirari breeding scarcely yet habitual to them, looked timidly towards their chaperones, as though pleading, "For Heaven's sake, let us for one moment be natural, and give vent to the delight with which this girl has inspired us." Said chaperones, with some faint reminiscence of nature unbusked and unsteeled by conventionality, sought relief in faintly tapping their kidded palms with their fans. Old boys, dragged away from after-dinner maps, or cosy house-dinners at the clubs, to do family duty, and expecting nothing but driest musical classicalities, expressed their gratitude in strident "bravas." Even the gilded youth of the period, surprised out of its usual inanity into a feeble semblance of life and earnestness, condescended to express its opinion of the singer, that she was not "half bad, don't you know?" And its component members inquired of each other, "who the devil is she?" On Lady Carabas' handsome face the hard-set look of anxiety had softened into the blandest smile of triumph; old Sir Purcell Arne's blond moustache bristled with delight; and at the conclusion of the ballad, when the singer, rising to the occasion, had sent a flood of melody surging through the room, now dying away in softest trills and most harmonious cadences, the enthusiasm could no longer be restrained, and amidst sonorous applause breaking forth from every side, the amateur instrumentalists leading the van, and Lady Carabas herself, regardless of appearances or of the value of three-buttoned gloves, clapping her hands with the ardour of the most zealous member of a professional claque,--Miss Grace Lambert, perfectly composed, and with the slightest bow in recognition of her triumph, laid her fingers daintily on Sir Purcell Arne's tremblingly-proffered arm, and disappeared from public view. Ten minutes' interval now, much needed. Impossible, after such a display, to keep the coterie quiet, and it breaks up at once into twenty little knots, all with the same refrain of praise, differently expressed: "Das ist aber'was Sch?nes!" "Tiens, tiens, Jules! v'là donc un rossignol charmant!" "That's what I call good singing, for an Englishwoman, that is, Veluti! Capisco, signor!" "Tell you what it is, old fella; since poor Bosio, you know, never heard anything like that, don't you know?" "It's A1, don't you know?" Frank testimonies these, from the male sex; chiming in with "Dearest Lady Carabas, O, how I congratulate you! Where did you find such a treasure? Charmin', quite charmin'; so ladylike, and all that kind of thing. Quite a nice-looking person, too!" from the female portion of the audience.  
She had vanished, and Miles Challoner remained mute and dazed. Of beauty he had always had a keen appreciation--that is, beauty as he understood it--showing itself in tolerable regularity of feature, in grace and aristocratic tournure. Red-and-white women, were they duchesses or dairymaids--and it must be owned that when Nature alone is depended upon they are generally the latter--found no favour in Miles's eyes. He used to say he liked a "bred"-looking woman; and here was one who, so far as appearance went, might have been a Plantagenet. And her voice--good Heavens!--was there ever heard anything so completely enthralling! The blood yet danced in his veins with the delight excited when that low tremulous utterance, gradually rising into trills of lark-like melody, first stole upon his ear. No wonder that all in the room were talking loudly in her praise. All? No. Rapt in his own delight, Miles had forgotten to speak to Lord Sandilands, to whom he partly owed the pleasure he had just experienced, and he turned to repair his neglect.
 
Lord Sandilands was sitting "quiet as a stone." He had recovered his gloves, and his long shapely white hands were tightly clasped together on his knee. Despite the tight clasp, the hands twitched nervously, and on the old man's well-cut features Miles noticed a worn pinched look, such as he had never before observed. Lord Sandilands' eyes, too, were downcast, and he did not raise them even when Miles addressed him.
 
"Was there ever anything so charming as that young lady?"
 
"She has a very sweet voice."
 
"Sweet! it is perfectly entrancing! I had no idea such sounds could be produced by human throat; and then her appearance so thoroughly ladylike, and such an exquisite profile! Why, even you, who go in so strictly for the classical, must have been satisfied with the profile!"
 
"I scarcely observed her."
 
"Scarcely observed her! Why, my dear old friend, that is very unlike your usual habit when a pretty woman is in question, unless, indeed, you were so enthralled by her voice that you cared for nothing else."
 
"Ye-es; that was it, I suppose--I--"
 
The conversation was interrupted by the return of the other guests, who, summoned by Sir Purcell Arne's preliminary taps, came back to their seats to hear the rest of the concert. All rustle and talk and chatter still. "Never was anything like it. I'm sure I can't tell where you pick up these wonderful people, dear Lady Carabas. And what comes next, dear Lady Carabas? O, now we're to have Mr. Wisk's operetta--for the first time; never was played anywhere before. You know Ferdinand Wisk? clever creature! there he is, comin' to conduct it himself. Sh-h!"
 
That clever creature, Mr. Ferdinand Wisk, who was supposed to be a scion of the aristocracy, but whose real mission in life seemed to be to devote himself to the affairs, public and private, of every member of the musical world, English or foreign, advanced rapidly through the room, and took the baton which Sir Purcell handed to him amidst general applause. Mr. Wisk's operetta needs but little mention here; it was bright and sparkling, and would have been more original if the overture had not been cribbed from Auber, and the concerted pieces from Offenbach; but as it was, it did remarkably well, affording opportunities for two young ladies and two young gentlemen to sing very much out of tune; for the funny man of the company to convulse the audience with his drolleries; and for the audience generally to repay themselves for their silence during Miss Grace Lambert's ballad, by chatting without stint. Perhaps the only two persons in the room who did not avail themselves of this opportunity were Lord Sandilands and Miles Challoner. The former, having glanced at the programme, and noticed that Miss Lambert's name did not appear again therein, made a half-muttered apology to Lady Carabas about the "heat," and left the room very shortly after the commencement of Mr. Wisk's performance; while the latter could not shake off the spell which held him, and which, during all the comic gentleman's funniments and all the others' bad singing, gave but Grace Lambert's voice to his ears, her face and figure to his eyes.
 
To supper now, foreigners first,--making great running and leaving everyone else far behind; leaping on to edibles and dashing at potables with such vigour as to cause one to think they had not dined, as indeed many of them had not. And now, more congratulation amongst visitors, more "Did you evers?" a perfect whirlwind of "Don't you knows?" and "only to think of dear Lady Carabas being so fortunate, and such a wonderful acquisition even to her set!" Ferdinand Wisk, a little depressed at being thrown into the background by the superior attractions of Miss Lambert; and the funny man of the company feeling himself not sufficiently appreciated, and thirsting for Miss Lambert's blood--both, however, consoled by old Piccolo, the fashionable music-master, who is popularly supposed to have been allied with Auber and Offenbach in writing Mr. Wisk's operetta, and who tells them that Miss Lambert's triumph is a mere succès d'estime, and that she will "go out like that--pouf!" Piccolo snapping his fingers and blowing out an imaginary candle in explanation. Foreigners having been fed, and a proper quantity of champagne and seltzer-water having been duly drunk, it enters into the minds of some of the younger guests that dancing would be a pleasant pastime for the remainder of the night, such exercise being sometimes permitted at the concerts, when Lady Carabas is in specially good temper, which is the case to-night apparently, for servants are instructed to clear the concert-room, a band is improvised, and the floor is soon covered with whirling couples.
 
On these dancers Miles Challoner stood gazing with an abstracted air. At the conclusion of the concert he had moved with the rest, and on passing Lady Carabas had addressed to her a few words of compliment on the success of her evening; words which, although Miles did not remark it, were pleasantly received, for though Lady Carabas had come to that time of life when she was called an "old thing" by very young ladies, the epithet having "dear" or "horrid," according to the speaker's tastes, attached to it, she still delighted in the admiration of men if they were clever or handsome, and purred under their praises with ineffable satisfaction. Whether Miles Challoner was clever, Lady Carabas had yet to learn; but she knew that he was undeniably handsome, and that he was a credit to her evening. Many other people in the rooms had thought so too; and though strange faces were more frequently seen at Carabas House than in any other frequented by the same set, Miles's tall figure and frank face had excited a certain amount of languid curiosity, and the "new importation," as he was called by people who had been twice to the house, made a very favourable first impression.
 
He was not the least conscious of it, though, nor, had he been, would he have particularly cared. When Lord Sandilands' brougham drew up under the portico of Carabas Hous............