TWO SONG BIRDS.
Percy Levant bowed and went to the piano, and Mr. Spenser Churchill walked across the drawing-room and took a seat immediately beside Doris.
“I hope you like my young friend?” he said, in his softest voice, and glancing affectionately toward him as he stood by the piano talking to Lady Despard.
“I have seen so little of him,” said Doris, “but he is very agreeable.”
“Yes. Ah, my poor Percy!” he sighed. “Poor boy! He has suffered so much—so much! There should be sympathy between you two, my dear young lady, for he has known what it is to lose his dearest. I should move your heart if I were to tell you what sorrow and trouble have fallen to my poor young friend’s lot, and win your admiration and esteem for him if I recounted the many difficulties he has had to encounter. It has been a hard world for him, a hard life, poor fellow! I do so hope you and Lady Despard will like him.”
Doris remained silent, but the softly-spoken words had something of the effect their speaker intended, and she looked toward the young man with increased interest.
“I think, with the exception of myself, he has scarcely a friend in the wide world,” said Spenser Churchill, sipping his tea and sighing. “I am counting so much on your and Lady Despard’s sympathy, my dear Miss Marlowe! A word of encouragement from such kind hearts as yours will go far to console him for the cruel disappointments he has endured. Ah! he is going to sing, I see! Now you will see if I spoke too highly of his voice and abilities.”
Percy Levant was certainly going to sing, but he seemed somehow loth to begin. For a few minutes his fingers strayed over the keys irresolutely, then he struck a chord and commenced.
He had chosen not an elaborate specimen of the flowery school, but a simple Brittany ballad, and he sang it exquisitely. Doris, as she listened to the long-drawn notes that seemed to float on eider wings through the room, felt a singular sensation at her heart. It was as if this stranger had defined the trouble of her young life, and had put it into music! With tightly compressed lips she sat fighting back the tears that threatened to flood her eyes, her hands closely clasped in her lap, her eyes fixed on the ground, unconscious that Mr. Spenser Churchill’s eyes were covertly fixed on her with a keen watchfulness.
The last notes of the song died away, and Lady Despard’s soft, languid voice poured out her praise.