Frithiof thought of his dream and was silent.
“I’m going to make tea, Roy,” said Mrs. Boniface, laying down her netting, “and you had better show Herr Falck his room. I hope you’ll often come and spend Sunday with us,” she added, with a kindly glance at the Norwegian.
In the evening they had music. Roy and Cecil both sung well; their voices were not at all out of the common, but no pains had been spared on their training, and Frithiof liked the comfortable, informal way in which they sung one thing after another, treating him entirely as one of the family.
“And now it is your turn,” said Cecil, after awhile. “Father, where is that Amati that somebody sent you on approval? Perhaps Herr Falck would try it?”
“Oh, do you play the violin?” said Mr. Boniface; “that is capital. You’ll find it in my study cupboard, Cecil; stay, here’s the key.”
Frithiof protested that he was utterly out of practice, that it was weeks since he had touched his violin, which had been left behind in Norway; but when he actually saw the Amati he couldn’t resist it, and it ended in his playing to Cecil’s accompaniment for the rest of the evening.
To Cecil the hours seemed to fly, and Mrs. Boniface, after a preliminary round of tidying up the room, came and stood by her, watching her bright face with motherly contentment.
“Prayer time, darling,” she said, as the sonata came to an end; “and since it’s Saturday night we mustn’t be late.”
“Ten o’clock already?” she exclaimed; “I had no idea it was so late! What hymn will you have, father?”
“The Evening Hymn,” said Mr. Boniface; and Frithiof, wondering a little what was going to happen, obediently took the place assigned him, saw with some astonishment that four white-capped maid-servants had come into the drawing-room and were sitting near the piano, and that Mr. Boniface was turning over the leaves of a big Bible. He had a dim recollection of having read something in an English poem about a similar custom, and racked his brain to remember what it could be until the words of a familiar psalm broke the stillness of the room, and recalled him to the present.