The minstrel's curse

“‘When nightly my wild harp I bring To wake all its music for thee, So sweet looks that face while I sing, To reason no longer I’m free. I forget thou art queen of the land-- ’Tis thy beauty alone that I see: And, trembling at touch of thy hand, All else is forgotten by me!

“‘The spell is upon me in sleep, In the region of dreams thou art mine! I wake--but, ah! ’tis to weep, And the hope of my slumbers resign. Ah! hadst thou been less than thou art, Or I more deserving of thee, Thou mightst have been queen of my heart, Thou mightst have been all things to me!’”

The exquisite tenor voice of the singer died away into mournful echoes; the low accompaniment wailed along the piano-keys like the cry of a breaking heart, then sobbed itself out--and silence reigned.

“There is still another verse, Mr. Winthrop,” said Lady Edith Chilton, softly.

“Which I shall not sing,” answered Guy Winthrop, coolly.

“Shall not?” the girl repeated after him, in a rising tone of displeasure. “No one ever says ‘shall not’ to me, Mr. Winthrop.”

“I suppose not”--Mr. Winthrop bowed slightly in homage to her fair young beauty--“therefore I say it. I--whom fate has placed so far beneath you, that I am not restricted to the sweet flatteries of your ladyship’s lordly admirers, nor yet to the passive subservience of your vassals--can afford to speak my mind!”

The long, magnificent drawing-room was deserted save for these two at the grand piano--Lady Edith Chilton of Chilton Park, Somersetshire, and Guy Winthrop, her young brother’s handsome tutor, who had just been singing at her request, the touching lines written in commemoration of Catlett’s love for the hapless Queen of Scots.

A sudden gleam of anger in her azure eyes reminded him of summer lightning in evening skies.

“At least you are very ungracious,” she said, petulantly; “you refuse out of mere perversity to sing that song for me, although you know I am not clever in singing, and have to learn after others like a parrot.”

An amused smile curved Guy Winthrop’s handsome mouth at her girlish pique.

“Pardon me, Lady Edith, but, to quote the compliments of your lordly admirers, you sing divinely, and even the dullest parrot might have learned that song during the three months in which I have daily sung it for you!”

“Well, then,” she confessed, frankly, “I like the song and like to hear you sing it. I regret that I have asked you to sing it once too often.”

“Once too often!” the young man rose to his feet, speaking impetuously, forgetting all restraint “Twice too often, twenty times too often for my peace of mind, Lady Edith, and you know it! You know as well as I that Catlett cherished no more hopeless love for beauteous Mary Stuart than I for you. Nay, start not--your brother’s humble tutor presumes not too much! He but tells you what you deserve to hear! Lady Edith, you knew when you asked me to teach you to sing, when you stood at my side in the pride of your high-born beauty and mingled your heavenly voice with mine, what the end must be! Perhaps you planned it all, you fair coquette!”

“Hush!” she cried, indignantly, but he went on, bitterly: