So the écru dress flitted away, and the others watched with deep interest.
"He won't do it," said Randolph.
"Yes, he will," said Miss Dangleum. "Puss is a match for the whole canine contingent."
And so it proved. The band finished the fantasia they had in hand, took their short rest, and struck off into the old, time-worn air.
And now everybody stopped to listen; some because they remembered it so long ago, and some because it was so old that it was new.
Magnus Kindred knew it well. The flood of new music had spread but slowly over his own little home region, and this air had always been a favourite with his mother. In the old childish days, before sorrows came, he had many a time heard her sing it. And now, amid the sweet rendering of the band, he seemed to hear her dear voice still, and the old words kept sounding in his ears:
"Love not! Love not!
The thing you love may change."
"Never!" Magnus said to himself. Not one of those four beloved people at home could ever swerve from him. What stuff those song makers did write!
He followed the band through the variations and interlude. Then began the simple air again; and the words would come: