It was Annie Benton's playing which Allan Dorris occasionally heard as he wandered about the yard of The Locks, for she came to the church twice a week in order that she might pretend to practise on Sunday afternoons, and please her father's critical ear with finished playing; and Dorris was so much impressed with the excellence of the music that he concluded one afternoon to look at the performer.
In a stained-glass window looking toward The Locks there was a broken square, little larger than his eye, and he climbed up on the wall and looked through this opening.
A pretty girl of twenty, a picture of splendid health, with dark hair, and features as regularly cut as those of a marble statue, instead of the spectacled professor he expected to see. Allan Dorris jumped down on the outer side of the wall, and, going around to the front of the church, entered the door.
The player was so intent with her work that she did not notice his approach up the carpeted aisle, until she had finished, and he stood almost beside her. She gave a little start on seeing him, but collected herself, and looked at him soberly, as if to inquire why he was there.
"I hope you will pardon me," he said in an easy, self-possessed way, "but I live in the place next door called The Locks, and having often heard you play of late, I made bold to come in."
"All are welcome here," the girl replied, turning the leaves of the book before her, and apparently paying little attention to Dorris. "You have as much right here as I, and if I can please anyone with my dull exercises, I am glad of the opportunity."
Allan Dorris seated himself in a chair that stood on the platform devoted to the choir, and observed that the girl had splendid eyes and splendid teeth, as well as handsome features.
"Do you mind my saying that I think you are very pretty?" he inquired, after looking at her intently as she turned over the music.
Allan Dorris thought from the manner in which she looked at him that she had never been told this before, for she blushed deeply, though she did not appear confused.
"I don't say it as a compliment," he continued, without giving her an opportunity to reply; "but I enjoyed the playing so much that I was afraid to look at the performer, fearing he would be so hideously ugly as to spoil the effect; but you are so much handsomer than I expected that I cannot help mentioning it."