'Have you?' said Lance. 'I've tried ever so often to get them on the violin. I'll show you.'
It was the first time he had spoken of touching his instrument; but Wilmet intercepted Stella, who was going as a matter of course to fetch it, by saying the sound would make the farmers expect a dance.
'So much the better,' said Angela. 'One waltz with Harry Palting, and my victory would be complete.'
'It seems,' proceeded Lance, 'that poor Bobbie held herself ready to start off with Bill in case I had been worse; and when the telegraph relieved their minds, the reaction showed itself in these verses.'
'Which Bobbie was there to secure,' added Cherry. 'I wonder how many of his get lost for want of her to copy them out, and make him polish them.'
'When a man hasn't a spark of vanity he misses a very good working machine,' said Lance.
'Spurring machine, you mean,' said Gertrude.
'Let me have them, Lance; you can't read them,' interposed Cherry.
Strange as was the subject, there was a wild airy grace about the lines, by turns joyous and pathetic, and really going well to the fitful music of the winds upon the wires. Lance went up to the piano, and struck a note or two; and that wonderful power he possessed over the instrument brought the very expression, if not the sound, and made Gertrude exclaim with delight, 'Oh! do make a song of it with a piano accompaniment; I am sure you can.'
'If you tell me I can,' said Lance, flushing and smiling, though perhaps aware of more technical difficulty than she knew; but the opening of the dining-room door, and the warm greeting of his brother's tenants, broke off his promise.