"Hadn't I better shut that window," asked Vivian. "Won't you get cold?"
"No, indeed," said her grandmother, promptly. "I'm plenty warm—I've got this little shawl around me. And it's so soft and pleasant out."
It was soft and pleasant, a delicious May-like night in March, full of spring scents and hints of coming flowers. On the dark piazza across the way she could make out a still figure sitting alone, and the thump of Balzac's heel as he struggled with his intimate enemies told her who it was.
"Come Ye Disconsolate," she began to hum, most erroneously. "How does that go, Vivian? I was always fond of it, even if I can't sing any more'n a peacock."
Vivian hummed it and gave the words in a low voice.
"That's good!" said the old lady. "I declare, I'm kinder hungry for some of those old hymns. I wish you'd play me some of 'em, Vivian."
So Vivian, glad to please her, woke the yellow keys to softer music than they were accustomed to, and presently her rich, low voice, sure, easy, full of quiet feeling, flowed out on the soft night air.
Grandma was not long content with the hymns. "I want some of those old-fashioned songs—you used to know a lot of 'em. Can't you do that 'Kerry Dance' of Molloy's, and 'Twickenham Ferry'—and 'Lauriger Horatius?'"
Vivian gave her those, and many another, Scotch ballads, English songs and German Lieder—glad to please her grandmother so easily, and quite unconscious of a dark figure which had crossed the street and come silently to sit on the farthest corner of their piazza.
Grandma, meanwhile, watched him, and Vivian as well, and then, with the most unsuspected suddenness, took to her bed. Sciatica, she said. An intermittent pain that came upon her so suddenly she couldn't stand up. She felt much better lying down. And Dr. Hale must attend her unceasingly.