"Is the friend _very_ ill?"
"No; influenza--low-spirited--wants Aunt Kezia."
"Aren't these Scotch people _queer_?" mused Sheila Pat.
Ted looked in after a ride, hoping he would be in time to catch Denis.
The sight of his riding things brought a lump to Nell's throat, but she
smiled on him brightly.
"I'm going to make some cakes, Ted, and you're to help eat them this
afternoon!"
"Oh, I say--er--I'm always here--"
"If you're tired of coming--"
"You know I'm not!"
"Well, then, don't be a goose."
"May I watch you make the cakes?"
She laughed.
"You're like the lodge children at home. So sure as I went into the
kitchen to make cakes, yellow and black heads would appear round the
door, and beaming mouths would wait for bits! Come along!"
He amused her greatly by wandering after her round the kitchen with a
chair.
"You could sit down to do that!"
"I'm never tired!" she declared, laughing.
He eyed her admiringly.
"I do like that! I thought girls were always feeling tired and faint."
"Oh, Ted, how old-fashioned you are!"
"You see, I haven't known many girls."
"Your experience must have been very unfortunate," she said, and then
she thought of his cousins, and blushed.
He smiled; he was thinking of them, too.
"You see these tricky little channels through these long cakes? Well,
they're going to be filled with a little jam, and a great roll of thick
cream!"
"Five hours to tea-time!" he sighed.
Down the stairs floated a wail of woe.
"I've upset the ink!"
"That's Molly. Do go and help her, Ted!"
To Nell presently there came the sound of Herr Schmidt's piano. She
propped the kitchen door open, and prepared to listen while she worked.
Hitherto she had only heard Ted play dances and jigs for them, but now
it was different. It drew her slowly from the kitchen up the stairs to
Herr Schmidt's room. She stood by the door and listened. He did not
see her. His legs were twisted contortedly round the old-fashioned
piano-stool; he was wrapt in his music. He was playing a waltz--soft,
dreamy, with a beautiful, pathetic refrain that made Nell's breath catch
in her throat.
When the last note had died away she went softly in. He glanced at her
with a far-away look in his deep-set eyes then he flushed, and stood up,
frowning.
"It was beautiful," she said softly.
"Er--glad you liked it. Piano's a good one. Finished the cakes, Nell?"
She shook her head.
"They're all burning and spoiling, I expect, but that waltz just drew my
feet up here! What is it, Ted?"
"Oh--that? Just a little waltz, you know," digging his hands into his
coat pockets.
"Well, yes, I know so much. But what is it called?"
"Oh--er--I don't quite know--"
"Who composed it? It was lovely!"
"Glad you liked it. I say, hadn't you better rescue your cakes?"
"Edward Lancaster, _who composed that waltz_?"
"Er--oh, I didn't see the composer's name--"
"It doesn't by any chance begin with an E and an L? Oh," she laughed out
at his fiery face, "how funny you are! What is there to be ashamed of?
You should be proud--_proud_! Are all the English like that? Shake
hands, Ted! It's lovely!"
"No--it's nothing!" But he looked delighted all the same. "You see, I
got this part," sitting down and softly playing the sad little refrain,
"I got that at home this morning;"--he had forgotten his shyness in his
interest,--"but I couldn't get a setting for it, and then suddenly down
in the kitchen just now, amongst the cakes, I got it!"
"I'm glad it was the happy part that came to you while you were with
me!" she laughed, and fled down to her cakes.
At tea that afternoon she nodded at Ted. "You're to take that burnt
one, please!" she said mischievously.
"Honoured," he declared, and they both laughed.
They had an evening of music, singing, and dancing down in Herr
Schmidt's room. They moved his table and chairs close to the walls, and
danced to their hearts' content.
It was in the midst of a rollicking chorus that Herr Schmidt returned
unexpectedly. He stood in the doorway, unseen, unheard, while the
chorus rang out:--
"'Mush, mush, mush, tooral i-add
Mush, mush, mush, tooral i-ay!
There was ne'er a gossoon in the village,
Dare thread on the tail of me coat!'"
"By Jove, the owner!" ejaculated Ted, as Denis started on the next
verse.
Denis nodded with gay insouciance at Herr Schmidt, and sang on.