"Pardon me," she said; "but are you the niece--the young American ?" "I'm my aunt's niece," Isabel replied with simplicity.
The lady at the piano sat still a moment longer, casting her air of interest over her shoulder.

"That's very well; we're compatriots." And then she began to play.
"Ah then she's not French," Isabel murmured; and as the opposite supposition had made her romantic it might have seemed that this revelation would have marked a drop.

But such was not the fact; rarer even than to be French seemed it to be American on such interesting terms.
The lady played in the same manner as before, softly and solemnly, and while she played the shadows deepened in the room.

The autumn twilight gathered in, and from her place Isabel could see the rain, which had now begun in earnest, washing the cold-looking lawn and the wind shaking the great trees.

At last, when the music had ceased, her companion got up and, coming nearer with a smile, before Isabel had time to thank her again, said: "I'm very glad you've come back; I've heard a great deal about you." Isabel thought her a very attractive person, but nevertheless spoke with a certain abruptness in reply to this speech.