But the best of eyes would not have counted this time, for he was not
there. He had accepted the offer of a room, where he was giving the day's
specimens certain treatments which he believed, or pretended, could not
wait until he should reach his far downtown cottage. His hostess and his
wife had gone with him, but now some light discussion of house adornment
was drawing them to the parlor. As this room was being lighted I saw our
guest, evidently through force of an early habit, turn a critical glance
to the music on the piano, and as quickly withdraw it. Both of us motioned
her solicitously to the music-stool.
"No, I do not play."
"Then you sing."
"No, not now, any more yet." But when she had let us tease her a wee bit
just for one little German song, she went to the instrument, talking
slowly as she went, and closing the door in the entomologist's direction
as she talked.
"Siss a great vhile I haf not done siss," she concluded, as her fingers
began to drift over the keys, and then she sang, very gently, even
guardedly, but oh, so sweetly!
We were amazed. Here, without the slightest splendor of achievement or
adventure, seemed to be the most incredible piece of real life we had ever
seen. Why, I asked myself, was this woman so short even of German friends
as to be condemned to a seamstress's penury? And my best guess was to lay
it to the zeal of her old-fashioned--and yet not merely old-fashioned-
wifehood, which could accept no friendship that did not unqualifiedly
accept him; and he?--Goodness!
When she ceased neither listener spoke; the tears were in our throats. She
bent her head slightly over the keys, and said, "I like to sing you
anusser." We accepted eagerly, and she sang again. There was nothing of
personal application in either song, yet now, near the end, where there
was a purposed silence in the melody, the silence hung on and on until it
was clear she was struggling with herself; but again the strain arose
without a tremor, and so she finished. "Oh, no, no," she replied, to our
solicitation, with the grateful emphasis of one who declines a third
glass, "se sooneh I stop, se betteh for ever'body," meaning specially
herself, I fancy, speaking, as she rose, in a tone of such happy decision,
and yet so melodiously, that two or three strings in the piano replied.
Her hostess took her hands and said there was one thing she could and
must do; she and her husband must spend the night with us. There was a
bed-chamber connected with the room where the Baron was still at work, and,
really--this and that, and that and this--until in the heat of argument
they called each other "My dear," and presently the ayes had it. The last
word I heard from our fair guest was to her hostess at the door of her
chamber, the farthest down the hall. It was as to shutting or not shutting
the windows. "No," she said, "I sink sare vill be no storm, because sare
is yet no sunder vis se lightening." And so it turned out. But at the same
time----