The time and the manner of his asking her appeared like a gratuitous insult to me; and I could have wept with pure vexation.
Meantime, she exultingly seated herself at the piano, and favoured him with two of his favourite songs, in such superior style that even I soon lost my anger in admiration, and listened with a sort of gloomy pleasure to the skilful modulations of her full-toned and powerful voice, so judiciously aided by her rounded and spirited touch; and while my ears drank in the sound, my eyes rested on the face of her principal auditor, and derived an equal or superior delight from the contemplation of his speaking countenance, as he stood beside her--that eye and brow lighted up with keen enthusiasm, and that sweet smile passing and appearing like gleams of sunshine on an April day.

No wonder he should hunger and thirst to hear her sing.

I now forgave him from my heart his reckless slight of me, and I felt ashamed at my pettish resentment of such a trifle--ashamed too of those bitter envious pangs that gnawed my inmost heart, in spite of all this admiration and delight.
'There now,' said she, playfully running her fingers over the keys when she had concluded the second song.

'What shall I give you next ?' But in saying this she looked back at Lord Lowborough, who was standing a little behind, leaning against the back of a chair, an attentive listener, too, experiencing, to judge by his countenance, much the same feelings of mingled pleasure and sadness as I did.

But the look she gave him plainly said, 'Do you choose for me now: I have done enough for him, and will gladly exert myself to gratify you;' and thus encouraged, his lordship came forward, and turning over the music, presently set before her a little song that I had noticed before, and read more than once, with an interest arising from the circumstance of my connecting it in my mind with the reigning tyrant of my thoughts.