'Do you know,' she went on wistfully, raising her beautiful eyes to her companion, 'after all, he gave me my first violin?'
'I like that little inconsequence,' he said.
'Then of course I took to it, like a cluck to water, and it began to scare him that I loved it so much. He and Catherine only loved religion, and us, and the poor. So he always took it away on Sundays. Then I hated Sundays, and would never be good on them. One Sunday I cried myself nearly into a fit on the dining-room floor, because I mightn't have it. Then he came in, and he took me up, and he tied a Scotch plaid around his neck, and he put me into it, and carried me away right up on to the hills, and he talked to me like an angel. He asked me not to make him sad before God that he had given me that violin; so I never screamed again-on Sundays!'
Her companion's eyes were not quite as clear as before.
'Poor little naughty child,' he said, bending over to her. 'I think your father must have been a man to be loved.'
She looked at him, very near to weeping, her face working with a soft remorse.
'Oh, so he was--so he was! If he had been hard and ugly to us, why it would have been much easier for me, but he was so good! And there was Catherine just like him, always preaching to us what he wished. You see what a chain it's been--what a weight! And as I must struggle--_must_, because I was I--to get back into the world on the other side of the mountains, and do what all the dear wicked people there were doing, why I have been a criminal all my life! And that isn't exhilarating always.'
And she raised her arm and let it fall beside her with the quick, over-tragic emotion of nineteen.
'I wish your father could have heard you play as I heard you play yesterday,' he said gently.
He nodded, smiling. She still looked at him, her lips slightly open.
'Do you want to know what I thought? I have heard much music, you know.'
He laughed into her eyes, as much as to say 'I am not quite the mummy you thought me, after all!' And she colored slightly.
'I have heard every violinist of any fame in Europe play, and play often; and it seemed to me that with time--and work--you might play as well as any of them.'
The slight flush became a glow that spread from brow to chin. Then she gave a long breath and turned away, her face resting on her hand.