Lilly was shocked at the idea that her celebrated father should himself go to the saddler's dingy workshop.
"Mercy!" she cried, and reached out for the handle of the bag. She would take it to the saddler herself.
"You're too grown up now for such things, my girl," he said, and his eyes lighted up as they scanned her tall, virginal body, her hips and bosom, already beginning to show delicate curves. "Why, you're almost a _signora_."
He patted her cheeks and pulled a little at the lock of the linen chest, gnawing his lips the while in intense bitterness. Then suddenly he shook himself, and with a shy, contemptuous look toward the kitchen--Lilly knew that look, too--went quickly out of the room.
The night following that red summer evening remained graven in Lilly's memory hour by hour.
Her mother sat on the window-sill in her nightgown, and her fervid, anxious eyes kept glancing up and down the street. Whenever she heard steps at a distance knocking on the pavement, she would start and cry:
Lilly felt there was no need to bother about the Pathétique to-day. A dull oppression in her left breast determined her to turn to St. Joseph, to whom she had stood in tender relations since her confirmation. She had already passed many a dreamy, idle hour before his altar at St. Anne's--right front, second chapel--and secretly sent up many an abstract sigh to the dear, good face with the beautiful beard. But to-night he failed her utterly. She could get no consolation from him, and vexed and disillusioned, she dismissed him.
At twelve o'clock the last vehicle passed the house.
At one the pedestrians, too, grew less frequent.
At half-past two a dusty wind arose, smelling of sand and threatening to blow out the lamp.
Between two and three only the night watchman was heard shuffling along the narrow, echoing street.
At three the early delivery wagons began to rattle, and it grew light.
Between three and four Lilly prepared a boiling hot cup of coffee for her mother, and ate up all the cold supper. Long waiting and crying had made her ravenously hungry.
Between four and five a band of young night revellers passed by, throwing kisses to her mother, and when their importunities forced her to withdraw from the window they serenaded her. Fine, pure voices, Lilly had to admit despite her grief; rendition good and precise, without that pedantic stop-like effect which papa so detested in the singing societies. Perhaps they were even pupils of his who did not know his residence.