"I would have resisted to the last.

I hated it." "Was that why you left off singing ?" It would have been so easy to tell a lie--a little harmless white lie but Christian could not do it.

She could keep silence to any extent, but falsehood was impossible to her.

She dropped her eyes; but the color once more overspread her whole face as she answered, distinctly and decisively, "No." It surprised her somewhat afterward, not then--her heart was beating too violently for her to notice any thing much--that her husband asked her no farther question, but immediately turned the conversation to Arthur's tea-party, in the discussion of which both were so eager to amuse the invalid that the other subject dropped--naturally, it appeared; anyhow, effectually.
But when the two other children came in to see Arthur, he again recurred to her singing, which had evidently taken a strong hold upon his imagination.
"Papa, you must hear her.

Mother, sing the song with pretty little twiddle-twiddles in it--far prettier than Aunt Henrietta's things-- something about warbling in her breath." "Oh no, not that," said Christian, shrinking involuntarily.