“Elsie the lady has come to stay,” she repeated, “and now I’ll see if I can play it as well as madam herself. I wonder if I look like one,” and half-dancing up to the glass, Elsie stood for a moment looking critically at herself. “No, I won’t do. My hair ought to be so,” and she gathered it up on the top of her head, from which the riotous ends speedily escaped in a curling mass. “There! that’s better; looks quite fashionable; gown is very plain, but then we’ll suppose I go in for asceticism. No rings, but no pot black on my hands. Nails well manicured and tolerably aristocratic-looking. That is, there’s quite a taper to the fingers, which I suppose puts the proper stamp on. Now that my lady has come to her own, let’s see how she receives her guests. We’ll try her cook first, so as to get the proper air of dignified severity. No, I’ll not do it,” she said thoughtfully, as she stood for a moment with downcast eyes. “She was kind to me after all, and I’ll not repay it with mockery even to myself. It is quite evident that there is a great deal due to station in this world, and Elsie the cook must cultivate a little appreciation. Come, my Lord Snubbem, and teach me to be a Brahmin.”
With a mock courtesy Elsie stood before a great sleepy hollow chair of blue velvet and went on with her soliloquy:
“You will no doubt understand, my lord, that this is my first appearance in society, and lacking the savoir faire of long acquaintance, I shall, I presume, shock you with some of my ‘wild woolly western’ ideas. Nevertheless, having seen that my brother, Mr. High-and-Mighty, just returned from ‘the continent’—that is the way even Americans put it, as if there were but one continent—is paying his proper devoirs to Miss Bullion, and will probably fall in love with her, or rather with her money, which, entre nous, is all ‘we’ ask nowadays, I suppose I’ll have to permit you, my Lord Snubbem, after a great deal of coaxing, to induce me to play for you. Of course you know all the time I’m dying to show off; at least that’s the way they say it is in society, and so you offer me your arm and lead me to the piano, and I prepare to display my diamond rings—dear me, it’s too bad I haven’t any!—and my precious little knowledge of music. Let me see, how shall I begin? With a grand flourish, of course; now for that Hungarian battle song!” And almost forgetful of the character she was supposed to represent, Elsie struck the heavy chords of the overture, and became at once absorbed in the melody she was evoking. “Ah, that is grand,” she sighed tremulously. “There is power, adaptability, volume in a piano that you can’t find in a cottage organ if you smother your soul in it. Now good-by, Lord Snubbem. Elsie the cook and Antoine the cripple have come back and are going to forget all about you.”
Presently, after a few drum-beats of the piano, arose the shrill, sweet notes of a trumpet-call. Again it came, louder, sweeter than ever, then the answering tones of the piano, until trumpet-call and drum-beat were blended in one brilliant clash of melody. Then the piano ceased and Elsie’s whistle took up the plaintive solo of the violin, which is supposed to represent the pathetic heroism of the Hungarian mother in sending her loved ones to battle. Softly, yet clearly, and with such underlying feeling rang the bird notes through the room that the listener felt tears gathering beneath his eyelids. Scarcely had the sweet notes ended when louder and faster came the crash of battle, to be followed by the low dirge and moaning cries rendered by the resonant whistle. “Oh, dear,” sighed Elsie, “if Antoine had only been here, it might have been worth while. What a grand thing the piano is! Poverty wouldn’t be so bad if it did not exclude so much of the heaven of music and art, etc., etc., etc. Now, Elsie the cook, stop that vain longing! Maybe you’ll earn a piano yet with your immense riches. Just one more try, and Elsie the cook must go into the lower regions again; but it’s been glorious to know what such a life might mean. Come, old comforter, and compose my soul,” and she struck the accompaniment to the old, old song, “Jesus, Lover of my Soul.” The fresh young voice, gaining confidence as the feeling pervading the melody swept over her, seemed to fill every nook and corner of the room and rise upward and outward until it was lost on the shining pathway to the stars. It was dusk when Elsie closed the piano, and with a sudden fervor she bent down and kissed it. “The only friend I have in the house,” she sighed aloud. A moment later she passed out into the hall humming softly to herself:
“Hide me! Oh, my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life be passed!”
When the last notes had died away in the distance Herbert Lynn sprang from his couch, and striking a match, looked at his watch.
“Six o’clock!” he exclaimed. “Helen will be furious because I’ve not kept my engagement; but I wouldn’t have missed that scene for all the dinners in Christendom. Heavens! what a nature there is in that little girl!”
CHAPTER XII.
Margaret sat reading a letter from Dr. Ely. The faint blood of returning health was deepening in her cheeks, and the glad light of her eyes intensified by emotions which the letter evidently called forth. With the freedom of the invisible biographer we will glance over her shoulder as she reads: