"I don't; but Becky is no fool, my dear."
They turned into the big drawing-room, a room charming enough in itself, without the addition of the fine old Chippendale chairs and tables, the carved davenport, the big inlaid piano, and the portraits representing beauties of a departed time. Linda knew them all. The beautiful girl in white, holding a rose, was Miss Ri's grandmother, for whom she was named and who was a famous belle in her day. The gentleman in red hunting-coat was a great-grandfather and his wife the lady with powdered hair and robed in blue satin. The man with the sword was another great-grandfather, and so on. One must go up a step to reach the embrasured windows which looked riverward, but at the others, which faced the lawn, hung heavy damask curtains. Linda had always liked the smaller windows, and when she was a little child had preferred to play on the platform before them to going anywhere else. There was such a sense of security in being thus raised above the floor. She liked, too, the little writing-room and the tiny boudoir which led from the larger room, though these were closed, except in summer, as so large a house was hard to heat comfortably.
A freshly-burning fire in the fireplace sent glancing lights over the tall candlesticks and sought out the brightest spots on the old picture-frames. It picked out the brass beading on the yellow-keyed piano, and flickered across Chinese curios on the spindle-legged tables. Miss Ri's grandfather had been an admiral in the navy and many were the treasures which were tucked away here, out of sight there, or more happily, brought forth to take the place of some more modern gift which had come to grief in the hands of careless servants.
"It is a dear old room," said Linda, sitting down at the piano and touching softly the yellowed keys, which gave forth a tinkling response.
"I ought to have a new piano," said Miss Ri, "and now you have come, it will be an excuse to get one. I'll see what I can do next time I go to town. I remember that you have a nice voice."
"Nothing to boast of."
"Not very powerful, perhaps, but sweet and true. I wish you'd sing for me, Verlinda, if you are not too tired."
"I will, if you will first play for me some of those things I used to love when I was a child. You would play till I grew drowsy, and then you would carry me off to bed."
"Oh, my dear, I don't play nowadays, and on that old tinkling piano."
"But it is just because it is the old piano that I want the old tunes."