“It dwindles so when I stop to think of it. I guess it is all summed up in the statement that ‘Elsie the cook’ is very well satisfied with her place, and a good deal prouder of her two-weeks’ wages than if somebody had earned the money for her. Just see!” and emptying the contents of her purse in Margaret’s lap, she went on: “Now, I’ve come home for some music and to hear the rest of you talk. Where’s the fiddle, Antoine? Let’s wake the echoes and forget the frying-pan.”
“O Elsie, life has come back with you,” exclaimed Antoine fervently as he tuned his fiddle.
“To stay, I hope; for I don’t want to be guilty of taking life when I go again.”
An hour later everything had been forgotten in the rendering of the old hymns and psalms with which it had been their wont to delight themselves on Sunday afternoons. Margaret and Gilbert were joining in the chorus, and Lizzette was softly humming to herself in her work about the kitchen, when there came a gentle rap at the outer door. Lizzette opened it and with difficulty repressed an exclamation at sight of Herbert Lynn on the threshold. With a warning gesture he put his fingers to his lips and said in a low voice: “I did not want to interrupt the music or I should have rapped at the front door. Who is it plays and sings so charmingly?”
“Antoine and Elsie,” said Lizzette proudly.
“Elsie? I did not know she was here. I had a little leisure and concluded I couldn’t better employ it than in coming to see my old Lizzette.”
“Vous avez ze welcome, just as in ze old days. Let me get ze leetle rocker, and you sall sit by me and talk,” and Lizzette made a move to enter the little sitting-room. Herbert’s hand was on her arm in an instant.
“No, no,” he said in a whisper. “Let me sit here and listen. It will disturb them to know I am here.”
Softly and sweetly from the other room came the strain, “’Tis midnight, and on Olive’s brow,” and Herbert Lynn reverently dropped his head in his hands and listened. If there was to his critical ear a lack of technical skill, there was no lack of sympathy or feeling in every touch and tone. Neither was there lack of genius, although it was easily discernible that it was an untrained genius.
“What power Antoine gets out of the violin,” he whispered to Lizzette, who nodded and smiled in proud acknowledgment of his appreciation.