Hyacinth worked as hard at the music as at the tennis under her tuition, and there came a time when he could sing an easy tenor part with fair accuracy.

Then in the early summer, when the evenings were warm, hymns were sung on the lawn in front of the house.

There seemed no incongruity in Marion Beecher's company in passing without a break from lawn-tennis to hymn-singing, and Mr.Quinn was always ready to do his best at the bass with a serious simplicity, as if it were a perfectly natural and usual thing to close an afternoon's amusement with 'Rock of Ages.' Hyacinth was not conscious of any definite change in his attitude towards religion.

He still believed himself to be somehow outside the inner shrine of the life which the Beechers and the Quinns lived, just as he had been outside his father's prayers.

But he found it increasingly difficult after an hour or two of companionship with Marion Beecher to get back to the emotions which had swayed him during the weeks of his intimacy with Miss Goold.