“Somewhat different, one might judge,” returned the man, smiling quizzically. “I can understand that, having lived in a studio myself, away back in the days of my youth.”
Ellen sprang to her feet. “Oh, did you ever live in a studio?”
“Yes, years ago in Leipzig, where I was a student of music, I lived with an artist friend. Aye! aye! what good times we had! Germany then wasn’t what it is to-day.”
“Then you are a musician.”
“A would-be one. I am the organist at the little church here, give lessons to the few pupils I can get, play the ’cello and violin when I get a chance, and—there you are.”
“My father played the violin.”
“So?”
“Yes, he and my mother often played together, she at the piano and he with his violin. I used to love to hear them as I lay in bed. It was so pleasant to go to sleep with that lovely music in my ears.”
“I can believe it, yes, I can well believe it.”
“My mother had a beautiful voice. She sang in a big church and sometimes in private houses,” Ellen went on, wondering a little why she was so expansive.