Beside the flowin’ river
You ’ear the words I sye.
Love me! love me forrever!
Love, though the world grows cold,
Till no more we roam, and they call us ’ome.
And there’s tew more lambs in the fold.
That sort of thing couldn’t possibly make anybody love anybody, you know. It’s rather queer,” she continued meditatively, “but one goes out at night all alone, and it’s quiet, and a lot of little stars show you how big the darkness is. You’re thinking just about ordinary things; and without any reason there comes into your head a bit of one of the Nocturnes—Chopin’s, the eleventh, I think—and straightway you feel as if you’ll die unless you kiss somebody you’re awfully fond of. And, of course, being alone, you can’t. And so you get sorrowful. It’s queer, because there’s nothing about love in all that—the music, and quiet, and darkness—to make one think about it; but one always does—at least I do.”
“My dear Erato!” remonstrated Clio.
“Well, I do. Euterpe shall sing to us now. I don’t mind a song that can be sung in a drawing-room—it’s the drawing-room song that I hate. But Euterpe knows all about it, and she sings beautifully, and she’s very pretty—and yet she’s shy.”
Erato was quite shameless in her favouritism. But she had chosen well. Euterpe was shy and quiet, but she loved singing. She smiled at Erato, and seated herself at a cottage piano in one corner of the cloud-room. I had not noticed before that there was a piano. She refused Clio’s offer to accompany her on the sackbut, and another offer from Terpsichore to accompany her on the banjo. She was quiet, but when it came to music she was firm. The music of her song was beautiful, but owing to the expense of printing music it is cheaper to give the words:—