"Not quite: and yet it is a kind of 'ever to thee faithful I'll be!' It's a pair of hapless lovers: he crosses the briny deep: and she is left lamenting."

"That is indeed appropriate!" she replied mockingly, as he placed the song before her.

"And am I to do the lamenting? And who for, if you please?"

She played the air once or twice through, first in quick, and finally in slow, time; and then gave us the whole song with as much graceful ease as if she had been familiar with it all her life:--

• "He stept so lightly to the land,
• All in his manly pride:
• He kissed her cheek, he pressed her hand,
• Yet still she glanced aside.
• 'Too gay he seems,' she darkly dreams,
• 'Too gallant and too gay
• To think of me----poor simple me---
• When he is far away!'

• 'I bring my Love this goodly pearl
• Across the seas,' he said:
• 'A gem to deck the dearest girl
• That ever sailor wed!'
• She clasps it tight' her eyes are bright:
• Her throbbing heart would say
• 'He thought of me----he thought of me---
• When he was far away!'

• The ship has sailed into the West:
• Her ocean-bird is flown:
• A dull dead pain is in her breast,
• And she is weak and lone:
• Yet there's a smile upon her face,
• A smile that seems to say
• 'He'll think of me he'll think of me---
• When he is far away!

• 'Though waters wide between us glide,
• Our lives are warm and near:
• No distance parts two faithful hearts
• Two hearts that love so dear:
• And I will trust my sailor-lad,
• For ever and a day,
• To think of me----to think of me---
• When he is far away!'"

"Why, so it would!" Lady Muriel gaily retorted. "Soldiers, sailors, tinkers, tailors, what a lot of words would fit in! I think 'my tinker-lad sounds best. Don't you?"