Then came another narrow staircase leading to the choir gallery, which faced the pulpit. When they reached the top they found the shades all down and the place quite dark except for a long, narrow beam of light which streamed through a crevice in one of the blinds. Winnifred stopped on the threshold with something like fear, which was yet pleasing because of the sense of mystery and romance which was blended with it in her imaginative young mind. Gretta, however, stepped in at once and went quickly toward the back of the gallery. Here she suddenly pulled up a shade, and Winnifred saw numbers of music books piled up on one of the long benches.
Gretta opened the organ and sat down. She reached the pedals with some difficulty, being obliged to stretch her legs somewhat in order to do so; but this, like everything else with her, was a part of the musical education which was the chief business of her life and of all the lives nearest to her. She began to play a voluntary, softly, slowly and reverently, yet clearly, and with wonderful appreciation for a child just entering her teens.
Winnifred climbed into the darkest corner she could find and gave herself up to enjoyment of the music and all the unusual surroundings. Forgetting all else, she began to weave herself and Gretta into a little story of a world separate and apart from the world she had always known: a world filled with visionary forms and faces, and in which there was no sound but that of music.
"Over there in that pew just under the stained-glass window," she thought, "is a little girl who cannot see, but who has never missed her eyesight, because she does not need it. She lives only in this world, where there is nothing but sweet sounds. She will grow up some day and go out into the other world where Gretta and I lived yesterday, but she will be a poet like Milton, whose picture, when he was such a beautiful boy, I saw yesterday; but she will not be sad like him, because she knows only the world of poetry and music.
"Over in that other pew," Winnie's dreams ran on, "is that poor, little, blind beggar girl I saw on the street yesterday afternoon. She isn't hungry now, for this is the fairyland of music where people do not need to eat. The music has gone straight to her heart—and see! she creeps softly over to the opposite pew—how did she know that the other little blind girl was there?—she creeps softly to the other pew, and they clasp hands and feel as happy as if they had looked into each other's eyes.
"And who is that sweet-faced girl in the pew just in front of the pulpit? She is beautiful. She looks like Nydia, the blind girl in 'The Last Days of Pompeii,' but she can't be Nydia, for Nydia lived and died hundreds of years ago. But she listens to the music just as Nydia might do if she were here now. It is not so sad to be blind in a world of music. And yet—how would I know where they were sitting if I were blind, too?"
And Winnie closed her eyes to try how it would seem not to be able to see. The music floated out upon the air; it grew softer and softer and sounded farther and farther away, and at last Winnie ceased to hear it, for the darkness and the gentle sounds had so soothed her senses that she went straight from day-dreamland to slumberland.
Gretta all unconsciously played on until she had finished her allotted task, forgetting the existence of Winnifred as completely as the latter had forgotten hers. But by and by she had finished the last bar, and jumped up from her seat with a feeling of satisfaction. She looked around in surprise for a moment when she realized that Winnifred had gone to sleep. The next thing the latter knew Gretta was shouting into her ear: "Wake up! Wake up, Winnie! I'm all through my practice and ready to go home. Let's hurry! It must be late."
They gathered up their school books, the sense of haste taking away all the feeling of mystery and romance. When they looked at the clock in the little room downstairs on their way out, Winnifred was dismayed and realized suddenly that she ought to have been at home an hour ago. She had a very uncomfortable walk home, particularly after she had parted from Gretta, but, as it happened, her mother had not yet returned and her absence had been unnoticed.
She told her mother about it in the evening—of how sweetly Gretta had played, and how she had imagined a world made on purpose for blind people.