Mrs. Dean's quiet voice interrupted his musings and broke the spell which the music seemed to have thrown around them.
"You will have some one now, Katherine, to accom
pany you on the violin, as you have always wanted; Mr. Darrell is a fine violinist."
Kate was instantly all animation. "Oh, that will be delightful, Mr. Darrell!" she exclaimed, eagerly; "there is nothing I enjoy so much as a violin accompaniment; it adds so much expression to the music. I think a piano alone is so unsympathetic; you can't get any feeling out of it!"
"I'm afraid, Miss Underwood, I will prove a disappointment to you," Darrell replied; "I have never yet attempted any new music, or even to play by note, and don't know what success I would have, if any. So far I have only played what drifts to me—some way, I don't know how—from out of the past."
The unconscious sadness in his voice stirred the depths of Kate's tender heart. "Oh, that is too bad!" she exclaimed, quickly, thinking, not of her own disappointment, but of his trouble of which she had unwittingly reminded him; then she added, gently, almost timidly,—
"But you will, at any rate, let me hear you play, won't you?"
"Certainly, if it will give you any pleasure," he replied, with a slight smile.
"Very well; then we will arrange it this way," she continued, her cheerful manner restored; "you will play your music, and, if I am familiar with it, I will accompany you on the piano. I will get out Harry's violin to-morrow, and while auntie is taking her nap and papa is engaged, we will see what we can accomplish in a musical way."
Before Darrell could reply, Mr. Underwood, who had started from his revery, demanded,—