When the girl turned round, Dorris was laughing, and she joined him in it.
"It is a dreadful thing for a girl to do," she said, though her face indicated that she did not think it was so dreadful, after all, and that she enjoyed it; "but when father comes to hear me practise, he insists on hearing the band pieces; and he sometimes calls for jigs, and quadrilles, and waltzes, and imitations of the hand-organ. The hand-organs, with their crippled players, have been of great use to me, for their music is all well arranged, and father says that if I can equal them he will be very proud of me. Please don't laugh at the idea, for father never says anything that is silly, and he knows good music when he hears it. I know it is the fashion to make light of the barrel-organ; and the people talk a great deal about bribing the players to leave town; but father says a great many customs are not founded in good sense, and perhaps this is one of them. We so rarely find innocent pleasure that we should be free to enjoy it, no matter what it is, or where found, whether custom happens to look on approvingly or not."
"I am glad you said that," Dorris returned, "for I enjoy coming here to listen to your practising, and whether the world approves or not, I intend to come whenever there is opportunity, and you do not object. It is my opinion that you have never been appreciated here, and I will repay you for the music by fully and thoroughly appreciating it. Do you know that you are a remarkable girl?"
Dorris was a bold fellow, the girl thought, but there was nothing offensive in his frankness. He seemed to say whatever occurred to him, without stopping to think of its effects.
"It never occurred to me," she said.
"Really and truly?"
"Really and truly," she replied. "If there is merit in my playing, I might have lived all my life without finding it out, but for you."
"Then let me be the first to tell you of it. You are very pretty, and you have talent above those around you. I hear that your father is a very sensible man; he no doubt appreciates what I have said, but dreads to tell you of it, fearing you will become discontented, and lose much of the charm that is so precious to him. The friends of Cynthia Miller force themselves into the belief that you are no handsomer than she, and that your playing is no better than her drumming. All the other Davy's Bend maids have equally dull and enthusiastic friends; but I, who have lived in intelligent communities, and am without prejudice, tell you that I have never seen a prettier girl in my life. You have intelligence and capacity, too. Mrs. Wedge has told me the pretty story of how you became an organist, and I admire you for it. Some people I have known were content to be willing to do creditable things, and came to believe in time that they had accomplished all they intended, without really accomplishing anything; but I admire you because you do not know yourself how much of a woman you are; at least you make no sign of it. I am glad to be the first to do justice to a really remarkable woman."
The remarkable woman was evidently surprised to hear this; for she was very much flustered, and hung her head.
"If a girl as pretty and intelligent as you are," he continued, "should fall in love with me, I believe I should die with joy; for a girl like you could find in her heart a love worth having. I don't know what I should do under such circumstances, for I have had no experience; but I imagine I should be very enthusiastic, and express my enthusiasm in some absurd way. No one ever loved me, that I can remember; for as a child I do not believe I was welcome to the food I ate, though I was not more troublesome than other children who receive so much attention that they care nothing for it. I have been indignant at men for beating their dogs, and then envied the love the brutes displayed while the smart was yet on their bodies. It has so chanced that the dogs I have owned were well treated and ungrateful, and finally followed off some of the vagrants who were hard masters. I have thought that they despised me because they were fat and idle, believing these conditions to be uncomfortable, having never experienced poverty and hard treatment; but certainly they regarded me with indifference and suspicion. But I didn't try to force them to admire me; I rather kept out of their way; for an animal cannot be driven to love his master, and you cannot force or persuade a man to admire any one he dislikes."