"O-h! And this little Mrs. Kendrue does not sport," reflected Solvei. In another instant her own face was all alight too. "Oh, of what a nonsense!" she laughed. "Of what a silliness! It is of course a mistake, most funny, most conflictable! In some way it is that the gifts should get mixed in the mails!"
"Oh, no!" wagged the Young Doctor's head. "Oh, no!" he reiterated with some emphasis. "Careless as I assure you many of the post-offices are there is very little likelihood of a grand piano and a duck blind getting mixed in the mails."
"O-h," subsided the Norse girl, but only for an instant. "What my idea should be," she resumed cheerfully, "and what the idea of my aunt should be, is that if you would let us take the piano—one month, two months, 107three, we would in return give you some lessons in this music, either in the piano or of the vocal."
"U-m-m," said the Young Doctor, "Yes—yes, of course that would undoubtedly be very humanizing and all that, but with so much unexpected competition, as it were, one must move very,—er—slowly in the matter. Just what—just what would be your idea, Mrs. Kendrue?" he turned and asked quite abruptly.
"My idea?" flushed the little widow. "Why—why, of course I didn't have any idea because I didn't even know that you possessed the piano until just now. But if you are still willing to part with it after—after the estate is settled," she hurried with evident emotion, "why, then—perhaps—I—" Yearningly as she spoke she stepped forward to the piano and fingered out one chord after another, soft, vibrant, experimental, achingly minor, a timid, delicate nature's whole unconscious appeal to life for help, love, tenderness.
"Dear me!" mused the Young Doctor.
"Oh! Do you play?" cried Solvei Kjelland ecstatically. 108
"Oh, no," deprecated the little widow. "I just sing. Do you sing?" she in turn demanded as though her very heart jumped with the question.
"Oh, no," said Solvei Kjelland, "I just play." Yearningly she in turn stepped forward and struck a single chord. But there was nothing soft or minor about this one chord. Sharp, clear, stirring as a clarion call it rang out through the dingy room.
"Oh, dear!" thought the Young Doctor.