"I suppose you are right, artistically speaking," replied Miss Harley, doubtfully. "But for myself, I must say, the sorrows of the real people about me always interest me more than the most romantic stories of the past."
"Now, don't try to persuade me that you are quite such a realist, Miss Harley, when you have shown what an idealist you are on social topics. What a noble man that father of yours must have been! I should like to know more of him. But come, Miss Blanchard, I see you are trying to make up your mind whether you're on Miss Harley's side or mine, and I don't want you to give judgment against me! Suppose you give us a little music, you and Miss Farrell. Can't we have a few airs from the Messiah, now? It would be such a good finish to the week's work—just what I need to put me in tune for to-morrow's duty!"
Nora colored a little at his thought-reading, but at once rose to comply with the request, which Miss Harley warmly endorsed. She had heard of Miss Blanchard's singing, and would be charmed to hear it for herself. There was a parlor-organ in a corner of the large room, in addition to the piano, and as they all agreed that this accompaniment would be much the more suitable for the music, Mr. Chillingworth gave his services as accompanist, playing with great taste and feeling. Nora sang the air, "He Shall Feed His Flock Like a Shepherd," and the other "He Was Despised and Rejected," with clear sweetness and pathetic expression, while a subdued stillness gradually stole over the little group of talkers at the other end of the room. Then, to check the little buzz of admiring comment, she insisted on Kitty's following at once with the air, "Come Unto Him All Ye That Are Weary and Heavy Laden:" Mr. Chillingworth took his turn in rendering, "Every Valley Shall Be Exalted," playing the beautiful undulating accompaniment for himself. Miss Pomeroy wanted to hear some of the choruses they had been practising, and they were just trying the angel's song, "Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men," when the other gentlemen entered the room.
The old gentleman, whose appearance and words had interested Nora a good deal, did not appear with the others, and she presently asked Mr. Archer, who came up to join her at the piano, what had become of him, and who and what he was.
"Oh, Dunlop always likes to slip away early," he said. "He's a queer old party! He's made a good deal of money in one way or other, so he's considered worth cultivating, and he knows it. He lives very quietly, they say; he's been a widower for years. He goes across the sea now and then, but always comes back 'to look after things.' He's got some ideas of his own, too, and he seems to take a great interest in this new paper of Graeme's—that 'crank' they were talking about. Now, I hope, since I have so amiably gratified your curiosity, you will gratify me by a song. I could catch distant echoes, tantalizingly remote, and now I want to hear the reality."
But Nora would sing only in the chorus they were just about to begin. She would not sing songs after the oratorio music.
When the chorus was over, Mrs. Pomeroy suggested that Mr. Chillingworth should give them a short poetical reading before the party broke up. "I know," she said, "that you'll give us something very nice, to dream on. Suppose you give us something from Browning. I just love to hear you read him! Clara, dear, won't you bring Mr. Chillingworth a volume of Browning?"
Miss Pomeroy, who belonged to a "Browning Club," speedily produced a volume which she knew contained a favorite reading of Mr. Chillingworth's. That gentleman seated himself where the soft light of a silver reading-lamp could fall most pleasantly on the book, while the rest of the company disposed themselves in various attitudes of luxurious repose, as people are apt to do after a sumptuous repast. Young Pomeroy threw himself on a sofa beside Kitty, where he could make whispered comments ad libitum. Nora found a place near Miss Harley, while Mr. Wharton lay back in an easy-chair with an expression of complaisant and critical expectancy.
It was the beautiful opening of the poem "Pippa Passes," that Mr. Chillingworth read, in a voice of musical quality and with a finished elocution, for he had paid special attention to that art. Perhaps it might have been objected that the reading suggested too much of the artist, and too little of the man. But Nora listened with keen and absorbed pleasure, as, through the music of the poet's lines and the reader's voice, one scene after another rose before her "inward eye." The glorious Italian morning just breaking over a sleeping country; the sunrise reddening, flickering, then "pure gold overflowing the world"; the little mill girl springing up, eager to lose not one minute of the long, lovely day, appealing to it, with its "long, blue solemn hours, serenely flowing" to "treat her well," and not spoil her one precious holiday by such gloom or showers as would not mar the pleasure of people richer in holidays and joys—the haughty beauty, the happy bride and groom, the boy and his mother, or Monsignore, in his dead brother's palace, the grandees of her little world:
"But Pippa—just one such mischance would spoil
Her day that lightens the next twelve months' toil
At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil!"