"How late thou hast stayed," said Madam Wetherill with tender chiding. "I hope nothing was amiss?"
"Oh, no, dear madam. The air was so fine that I loitered. And the dark seems to fall suddenly when it does come."
"Thou must change thy habit and come to supper. Put on a jacket and petticoat, and afterward one of thy best gowns, for there is to be some young company. Pamela Trumbull sent word 'That she would come with a host of cousins, and thou must have in thy best singing teeth.' The maid is always full of merry conceits. And over our teacups thou shalt tell me about the Henrys."
Primrose repeated all but her last interview with Rachel. Delicacy forbade that. And then Patty helped her into a furbelowed gown of china silk that had been made from Madam Wetherill's long-ago treasures and had a curious fragrance about it.
The young people came, a merry company, and first they had a game of forfeits and some guessing puzzles. Then Pamela, who had quite bewitched her cousin with tales of Primrose's singing, insisted that she should go to the spinet. She found a song.
"Oh, not that foolish one," cried Primrose, blushing scarlet.
"It is so dainty and no one sings it as you do. And in the print store on Second Street there was a laughable picture of such a pretty, doleful Cupid shut out of doors in the cold, that I said to Harry, 'Mistress Primrose Henry sings the most cunning plaint I know, and you shall hear it.'"
Mr. Henry Beall joined his persuasion and they found the music. Primrose had a lovely voice and sang with a deliciously simple manner.
"As little Cupid play-ed,
The sweet blooming flowers among,
A bee that lay concealed
Under the leaf his finger stung.
Tears down his pretty cheeks did stream
From smart of such a cruel wound,
And crying, through the grove he ran,
Until he his mammy found.
"'Mammy, I'm sorely wounded,
A bee has stung me on the plain,
My anguish is unbounded,
Assist me or I die with pain.'
She smil-ed then, replying,
Said, 'O my son, how can it be?
That by a bee you're dying,—
What must she feel who's stung by thee?'"