I was exerting myself to sing and play for the amusement, and at the request, of my aunt and Milicent, before the gentlemen came into the drawing-room (Miss Wilmot never likes to waste her musical efforts on ladies' ears alone).

Milicent had asked for a little Scotch song, and I was just in the middle of it when they entered.
The first thing Mr.Huntingdon did was to walk up to Annabella.
'Now, Miss Wilmot, won't you give us some music to-night ?' said he.

'Do now! I know you will, when I tell you that I have been hungering and thirsting all day for the sound of your voice.

Come! the piano's vacant.' It was, for I had quitted it immediately upon hearing his petition.

Had I been endowed with a proper degree of self-possession, I should have turned to the lady myself, and cheerfully joined my entreaties to his, whereby I should have disappointed his expectations, if the affront had been purposely given, or made him sensible of the wrong, if it had only arisen from thoughtlessness; but I felt it too deeply to do anything but rise from the music-stool, and throw myself back on the sofa, suppressing with difficulty the audible expression of the bitterness I felt within.
I knew Annabella's musical talents were superior to mine, but that was no reason why I should be treated as a perfect nonentity.