"Do you know, papa," said Mrs. Ashton, "that your little daughter has learned another hymn to sing for you, and she would like to sing it to you before you return to the store, if it will not detain you too long."
"Is that so?" said Mr. Aston. "Then, by all means, papa must hear it."
"I 'earned it from Allie," said Mamie, "and she has been teaching me this 'ong, 'ong time; but dey told me I was not to 'et papa know till I had dot it dood."
"Well, Allie," said her father, "you come and give me your piece, and then I will hear my little Mamie."
Allie sat down at the piano and played Thalberg's "Home, Sweet Home," and as she rendered it its sweet pathos went to the heart of her father, and he paid her the highest compliment possible; for when she had finished she found him with his head turned away to hide his emotion.
It had brought back the dear old home of his boyhood, and the dear ones who had made it so happy, but who had long, long ago gone to the home above; and then his thoughts came back to his present happy home, and he thought of the dear inmates who had been so true to him when he had been so untrue to himself. The piece was, in his estimation, the sweetest, the most thrilling, the most delicately and tenderly touching of anything to which he had ever listened.
"It is certainly very fine, my darling," he said, as he stooped and kissed Allie. "I never had music exercise such a power over me; it was almost painful in its thrilling ecstasy."
The fine dark eyes of Allie glowed with happiness as she listened to the commendation of her father. Praise from any other lips would be but as "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" when compared with his; for her love for him, under every circumstance, through evil as well as good report, was so great that she would have died for him; and his praise of her singing filled her with inexpressible joy.
"Now, little sunbeam," said Mr. Ashton, "I will hear you sing your piece. Come, Allie, and play for her, for I must soon return to the shop."
Allie again took her place at the piano and played the prelude, and then started little Mamie, who sang: