members of which were busy with quinze and lansquenet in a card-room that opened out of the salon, the younger ones standing or sitting about in groups and listening to a song which Monsieur de St. Aulaire, who was at the harpsichord, had just begun.  It was Blondel’s song from Gretry’s “Richard Coeur de Lion,” about which all Paris was crazy and which Garat sang nightly with a prodigious success at the Opera.  This aria Monsieur de St. Aulaire essayed in faithful imitation of the great tenor’s manner and in a voice which showed traces of having once been beautiful, but which age and excesses had now broken and rendered harsh and forced.

As Calvert saluted Adrienne, when the perfunctory applause which this performance called forth had died away, he thought he had never seen her look so lovely.  She wore a dress of some soft water-green fabric shot with threads of silver that fell away from her rounded throat and arms, bringing the creamy fairness of her complexion (which, for the first time, he saw enhanced by black patches) and the dusky brown of her hair to a very perfection of beauty.  She was standing by the harpsichord when the gentlemen entered, but, on catching sight of Mr. Jefferson, she went forward graciously, extending her hand, over which he bowed low in admiration of that young beauty which, in his eyes, had no equal in Paris.

There was another pair of eyes upon her which saw as Mr. Jefferson’s kindly ones did, but to them the young girl paid little attention, only giving Mr. Calvert a brief courtesy as she went to salute her brother.

“Will you not make Mr. Jefferson a dish of tea, Adrienne?” asked d’Azay, kissing her on both her fair cheeks.  “And if we are to have music I beg you will ask Calvert to sing for us, for he has the sweetest voice in the world.”

“What!” exclaimed the young girl, a little disdainfully.  “Mr. Calvert is a very prodigy of accomplishments!”

“Far from it!” returned Mr. Calvert, good-naturedly. “’Tis but a jest of Henri’s.  Indeed, Madame, I am nothing of a musician.”

“He may not be a musician, but he has a voice as beautiful as Garat’s, though I know ’tis heresy to compare anyone with that idol of Paris,” said Beaufort, joining the group at that instant.  “Dost thou remember that pretty ballad that thou sangst at Monticello, Ned?” he asked, turning to Calvert.  “Indeed, Madame, I think ’twas of you he sang,” he added, smiling mischievously at Madame de St. Andre.

“What is this?” demanded Adrienne, imperiously.  “Is this another jest?  But I must hear this song,” she went on, impatiently, and with a touch of curiosity.

“’Twas my favorite ‘Lass with the Delicate Air,’” said Mr. Jefferson, smiling.  “You must sing it for us, Ned, and I will play for you as I used to do.”  He took from its case a violin lying upon the harpsichord and, leaning over it, he began softly the quaint accompaniment that sustains so perfectly the whimsical melodies and surprising cadences of Dr. Arne’s ballad.