Laverne drew a long breath. "Oh, that isn't the word," she said. "We may like a good many things, but they do not all go to your heart."
Isola took the fair face in both hands, which were cold, but the child did not shrink, she was still so impressed with the melody.
"Let me look at you. Oh, what beautiful eyes you have—sometimes you find that color in the sky. But music goes to the soul, the brain, and I wish I could see yours. Did you feel as if you could swoon away?"
"I wanted to cry," Laverne said, in a tremulous tone. "But it was not from sorrow nor joy; you sometimes do cry when you are full of delight, but—at times when I hear the right music in church, I think that is what heaven will be like."
"What was that like—not heaven?"
"It was night when I am sitting out on the step, and not thinking, but just watching the stars come out."
"Oh, you little darling. I wish you could stay here always. I wish they, your people, would fancy Elena, and we could change. She laughs, and it goes through me like a bolt of lightning, and leaves me numb. I'd like to have some one who listens that way. Mam'selle declares the playing is wrong because I do not follow the notes, and one day when she insisted, I flung myself down on the floor and cried until I was sick. And now I am let to play what I like most of the time. I hate books—do you like to study dry, prosy things? What does it matter whether the world is round or square?"
"Why, it might not revolve in quite the right way, and I guess the ships couldn't sail as well." She smiled at the thought of the corners.
"Now, we will have morning."
First it was a wind rustling among the trees. The sort of metallic swish of the evergreens, the whisper of the pines, the patter of the oaks; then a bird singing somewhere, another answering, hardly awake; young ones peeping a hungry cry, then a gay, swinging, dashing chorus, with a merry lark going higher and higher, until he was out of hearing. Sounds growing discordant, impatient, harsh.