It was when the general merriment was at its height that Jane, laden with a tray of refreshments approached the overheated musicians who were scraping and blowing and thumping away in that corner of the dining room from which Mr. Lambert’s desk—as an article that harmonized too little with the elegance of the occasion—had been temporarily banished.
“In another four or five years or so, we’ll be making music at _your_ wedding no doubt—if we live, eh?” said old Elias Gilroy at last laying aside his cello for a moment, to take a long draught of cider. When he came out of the mug, wiping his grizzled moustaches delicately on a blue polka dot handkerchief he winked merrily at Jane, who had sat down beside him.
“And why aren’t you twirling round with the boys, my lassie?” he went on affectionately, now helping himself to a gigantic slice of cake.
“I came over to watch you—and besides, I’d rather look on,” said Jane, carefully smoothing out the skirt of her new blue silk dress. “Shall I get you some more cider, Mr. Gilroy?”
“Well—I’ll not trouble you,” said he, uncertainly, “though if there’s plenty to be had—”
“There’s lots. There’s lots and lots of everything!” cried Jane. “I’ll bring a pitcher!”
When the enthusiastic musicians had had “fresh heart put into ’em” as Mr. Gilroy said, she stood by watching them tune up their instruments for a new onslaught on the famous, lively measures of “Old Uncle Ned.”
“Oh, I _do_ wish I could make music out of that big thing!” she cried pointing to the cello.
“You have to be born to it,” replied Mr. Gilroy solemnly, sawing away with all his might. “It’s an easier matter to blow a tune through that—” he jerked his head in the direction of Mr. Mellitz’s gleaming trombone, whose huge tones fairly drowned out the voices of the other instruments. Mr. Mellitz, though he might have taken offense at the disparaging manner in which his colleague referred to his instrument, seemed not to have heard Mr. Gilroy’s remark. He sat behind the other three, directly under the window, staring fixedly down the shining tube of the trombone at his music;—a meager, melancholy looking man, little given to sociable conversation, with a tallow-colored face which just now was swollen out as he forced all the breath in his lean body into the mouthpiece.