“When is Miss Sherwood coming home?” asked one of the ladies. “Why does she stay away and leave him to his sufferings?”
“Us to his sufferings,” substituted a bachelor. “He is just beginning; listen.”
Through all the other sounds of music, there penetrated from an unseen source, a sawish, scraped, vibration of catgut, pathetic, insistent, painstaking, and painful beyond belief.
“He is in a terrible way to-night,” said the widower.
Miss Hinsdale laughed. “Worse every night. The violinist is young Wetherford Swift,” she explained to Harkless. “He is very much in love, and it doesn't agree with him. He used to be such a pleasant boy, but last winter he went quite mad over Helen Sherwood, Mr. Meredith's cousin, our beauty, you know—I am so sorry she isn't here; you'd be interested in meeting her, I'm sure—and he took up the violin.”
“It is said that his family took up chloroform at the same time,” said the widower.
“His music is a barometer,” continued the lady, “and by it the neighborhood nightly observes whether Miss Sherwood has been nice to him or not.”
“It is always exceedingly plaintive,” explained another.
“Except once,” rejoined Miss Hinsdale. “He played jigs when she came home from somewhere or other, in June.”
“It was Tosti's 'Let Me Die,' the very next evening,” remarked the widower.