"Yes, grandfather," Maisrie replied, rather timidly. "Last night, when you were out, some one played."
"Ah, a music-mistress, I dare say. Poor thing--perhaps all alone--and wishing to be friendly in this sort of fashion."
They listened without further speech until the last notes had gradually died away.
"Oh, no, grandfather!" she said, hastily.
"It would be like answering--to a stranger."
"And are we not all strangers?" he said, gently. "I think it is a very pretty idea, if that is what is meant. We'll soon see. Come, Maisrie; something more than the plashing of a southern fountain--something with northern fire in it. Why not 'Helen of Kirkconnell'?"
The girl was very obedient; she took up her violin; and presently she was playing that strangely simple air that nevertheless is about as proud and passionate and piteous as the tragic story to which it is wedded. Perhaps the stranger over there did not know the ballad; but George Bethune knew it only too well; and his voice almost broke into a sob as he said, when she had finished--
"Ah, Maisrie, it was no music-master taught you that; it was born in your nature. Sometimes I wonder if a capacity for intense sympathy means an equal capacity for suffering; it is sad if it should be so; a thick skin would be wholesomer--as far as I have seen the world; and few have seen more of it. Well, what has our neighbour to say?"
Their unseen companion on the other side of the little thoroughfare responded with a waltz of Chopin's--a mysterious, elusive sort of a thing, that seemed to fade away into the dark rather than to cease. Maisrie appeared disinclined to continue this _do ut des_ programme; but her grandfather overruled her; and named the airs for her to play, one by one, in alternation with those coming from the open window opposite. At last she said she was tired. It was time for the gas to be lit, and the hot water brought up for her grandfather's toddy. So she closed the window and pulled down the blind; lit up the room; rang the bell for the hot water; and then placidly sate down to her knitting, whilst her grandfather, brewing himself an unmistakable gude-willie waught, and lighting another pipe, proceeded to entertain her with a rambling disquisition upon the world at large, but especially upon his own travels and experiences therein, his philosophical theories, and his reminiscences of the Scotch countryside ballads of his youth.