“It was all pig-tails then. People wore them in their very brains. Withal, times are better now....”
Sebastian Ulwing shook his head obstinately. Suddenly his face lit up, as if he had found the reason for all his statements.
“We were young then.” He uttered this modestly and smiled. “My head turns when I remember your putting shingles on the roof of the parish church. You sat on the crest-beam and dangled your feet towards the Danube. Wouldn’t you get giddy now if you were sent there!”
Anne, immobile, watched her grandfather’s hand lying near her on the table. And as if she wanted to atone for the injury inflicted by the strange girls, she bent over and kissed it.
“What’s that?” Christopher Ulwing withdrew his hand absent-mindedly.
Anne cast her eyes down, for she felt as if she had exhibited a feeling the others could not understand.... Then she slipped unobserved out of the room.... In the sunshine room a volume lay on the music chest. On the green marbled cover were printed the words “Nursery Songs,” surrounded by a wreath. On the first page a faded inscription, Christina Jörg, Anno 1822. Anne sat down to the piano. Her small fingers erred for some time hesitatingly over the keys. Then she began to sing sweetly one of the songs:
Two prentice lads once wandered
To strange lands, far away....
Shy, untrained, the little song rose. Her voice, veiled when she talked, rang out clear when she was singing. She herself was struck by this difference and it seemed to her that till this moment she had been mute all her life. She felt elated by the discovery of the power to express herself without risking the mocking derision of the others; now her grandfather would not draw his hand away from her.
Two prentice lads once wandered,