"This is the face I like best," was the child's reply, glancing up at that stranger face, "save for that of his mother."
"This is the face I like best, my dear, but he broke my heart. Do you know who it is?" inquired the mother, a thrill in her voice.
"Yes, dear Madame Giche--your son," returned Inna, with a child's sensitive shame at having listened to so much from Sybil.
"Yes; Sybil told me. Forgive me, dear Madame Giche, if I ought not to have heard it. Sybil said I might; it was no secret, when we were talking of it." Inna's small fingers grasped Madame Giche's thin ones.
The child stroked the hand she held, wondering what she ought to say next, a tear trickling down her cheek; and Madame Giche saw it.
"Are those tears for me, little Inna?" she asked gently.
"My dear, that will never do--young people's sunshine should not be overshadowed by old people's clouds. Now, do you know what I want you to do?"
The beautiful mellow-toned piano from the drawing-room had been removed to the tapestried chamber, and a new one sent from London to fill its place. Quite little musical parties did the aged lady have, now and then, of an evening, in the gloaming, the four children, with lights at the piano, trilling in their bird-like voices some little snatch of a juvenile song, duet, trio, and sometimes a quartette, their nimble fingers wandering among the keys the while in a tangle of melody. But of all the four, their aged listener loved best to hear Inna sing: her voice was so plaintive, so expressive. The charm lay in this: that she was always thinking of her mother at such times, and her heart seemed to speak in her voice. It did to-night, when she sat down to the piano, her gentle old friend on the hearth by the smouldering log fire.
"Sing that little thing I heard you practising so nicely yesterday," came to her across the room. So, with a tinkling little prelude, she began--
"A daisy wept in the moonlight pale, And bowed her beautiful head, And a little white moth came dancing by-- 'Why weep, sweet daisy?' it said.
"'I weep for that which can never be, I sigh for a wider sphere-- Would, little moth, I had wings like thine! Instead, I am rooted here.'
"'A moth, my life is a sweet content, But no worthy life for thee.' 'Change!' cried the daisy; 'take my place; A little white moth I'd be.'