There was a titter among the girls at this open avowal.
"Ah, why wouldn't I say it?" exclaimed she, laughing. "I am not a mealy-mouthed miss; sure _I_ may tell truth; and I wouldn't trust one o' ye," she added, with a very significant nod of the head at the gentlemen, "except the captain. Yes--I'd trust one more--I'd trust Mister O'Connor; I think he really could be true to a woman."
The words fell sweetly upon his ear; the expression of trust in his faith at that moment, even from the laughing widow, was pleasing; for his heart was full of the woman he adored, and it was only by long waiting and untiring fidelity she could ever become his.
He bowed courteously to the compliment the hostess paid him; and she, immediately taking advantage of his acknowledgment, said that after having paid him such a pretty compliment he couldn't refuse her to sing a song. Edward never liked to sing in mixed companies, and was about making some objections, when the widow interrupted him with one of those Irish "Ah, now's," so hard to resist. "Besides, all the noisy pack are in the dancing-room, or indeed I wouldn't ask you; and here there's not one won't be charmed with you. Ah, look at Miss Monk, there--I know she's dying to hear you; and see all the ladies _hanging on your lips_ absolutely. Can you refuse me after _that_, now?"
It was true that in the small room where they sat there were only those who were worthy of better things than Edward would have ventured on to the many; and filled with the tender and passionate sentiment his conversation with Miss Monk had awakened, one of those effusions of deep, and earnest, and poetic feeling which love had prompted to his muse rose to his lips, and he began to sing.
All were silent, for the poet singer was a favourite, and all knew with what touching expression he gave his compositions; but now the mellow tones of his voice seemed to vibrate with a feeling in more than common unison with the words, and his dark earnest eyes beamed with a devotion of which she who was the object might be proud.
How sweet is the hour we give, When fancy may wander free, To the friends who in memory live!-- For then I remember thee! Then wing'd, like the dove from the ark, My heart, o'er a stormy sea, Brings back to my lonely bark A leaf that reminds of thee!