She took his hand again as she addressed him, and Ferdinand noticed that it was icy cold. She was trembling all over and her eyes were troubled. He was just about to answer when a sharp twang caught his ear, and turning his head he saw Ezra in the act of handing the violin to Reuben.
“Have you got a fourth string, lad?” asked Ezra, speaking unevenly and with apparent effort; “this has gi'en way. I'm no hand at a fiddle nowadays,” he added, with a pitiable smile, “or else there's less virtue in catgut than there used to be.”
“They make nothing as they used to do,” said Reuben. He had drawn a flat tin box from his pocket and had selected a string from it, when Rachel drew Ferdinand on one side.
“Let me bring you a chair, Mr. Ferdinand,” she said. “We will sit here and you must tell me of my dear mistress.”
“Stay here,” said Ferdinand, “I will bring you a chair.” He was not sorry to be seen in this amiable light. It was agreeable to bend condescendingly to his grandmother's attached and faithful servitor, and to be observed. There was a genuine kindliness in him, too, towards the little withered old woman who had nursed him in his babyhood, and had taught him his first lessons. He brought the chairs and sat down with his old nurse at the edge of the grass-plot at some little distance from the others.
“We will talk for a little time about my dear mistress,” said Rachel, “and then I will ask you to take me away.” She leaned forward in her chair, looking up at her companion and laying both hands upon his arm. “I cannot stay here,” she went on, in a whisper. “There are reasons. There is a person here I have not seen for more than a quarter of a century. You have observed that I am sometimes a little flighty.” She withdrew one of her hands and tapped her forehead.
“My dear Rachel!” said Ferdinand, in smiling protestation.
“Yes, yes,” she insisted, in a mincing whisper, as if she were laying claim to a distinction. “A little flighty. You do no credit to your own penetration, dear Mr. Ferdinand, if you deny it. That person is the cause. I suffered a great wrong at that person's hands. Let us say no more. Tell me about my dear mistress.”
The varnish of unconscious affectation was transparent enough for Ferdinand to see through. The little old woman minced and bridled, and took quaintly sentimental airs, but she was moved a great deal, though in what way he could not guess. He sat and talked to her with a magnificent unbending, and she took his airs as no more than his right, and was well contented with them.
“And now, Reuben,” cried Fuller, who, like everybody else, had noticed Miss Blythe's curious behavior to Ezra and was disturbed by it—“and now, Reuben, if thee hast got the old lady into fettle, let's have a taste of her quality. It's maney an' maney a year now since I had a chance of listenin' to her. Let's have a solo, lad. Gi'e us summat old and flavorsome. Let's have 'The Last Rose o' Summer.'”