"Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
Sailed on a river of misty light,
Into a sea of dew.
'Where are you going, and what do you wish?'
The old moon asked the three.
'We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,'
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod."
When he had finished, he turned away from the piano with a laugh.
"There!" he said, as he rested his hand on Fred's shoulder. "I know boys like nonsense songs, and what could be more appropriate than this charming little Dutch one, after the hint you gave us with that alarm clock? Washburn, we've made a disgracefully long call, and we ought to have left Miss Carter in peace long ago."
"Oh, Mr. Muir, don't stop!" urged Bess. "Please sing something more, just one." And she motioned him back to the piano.
The young man demurred a little, but, as she insisted,—
"Well," said he, "I sang to Fred before, now I will sing to you."
And, after a few random chords, he gradually drifted into the prelude to Schubert's "Serenade," a song that had always won the enthusiastic applause of the impressionable young ladies whom he met in society. With all its intense sentimentality, it had never been a favorite with practical Bess; but there was no resisting the influence of such a voice, and before he had finished a dozen notes, Bess was held by the same charm which she had felt that other evening in the church. She was fast losing all consciousness of everything but the passionate beauty of the music, when a long, gusty howl brought her back to herself, and made them all turn their heads to see whence the sound proceeded. There on the floor sat Fuzz, erect on his haunches, his paws in the air and his curls dejectedly flattened over one eye, while, with his nose pointed skyward, he was giving expression to his feelings in wail after wail, each one longer and louder than the last. Bess sprang to catch the dog, but with a quick movement he dodged away, and ran to the other side of Mr. Muir, where he again sat up, and, at the next high note, chimed in with another discordant shriek, while his furiously wagging tail expressed his pleasure in this novel duet. It was useless to try to go on, and the singer rose from the piano, while Bess said,—
"This is too much, Mr. Muir! What must you think of such a household? Between the boys and the dog, your evening has been a remarkable one."
And not even the young man's laughing assurance of his enjoyment of it all, could entirely restore her ease of manner while the good-nights were being said.
After Mr. Muir was at the door, he came back to shake hands once more with Fred, and say,—