"Did you like that little dream? That is my notion of the gentleman at the festival, do you know."
"Did you compose it?" I asked in a maze.
"No, I believe he did."
"Then you know who he is? Tell me, oh! tell me the name."
She smiled then at me with kindness,—a beneficent sweetness. "Come, sit down, and I will sit by you and tell you the story."
"May not Miss Benette come too?"
"Oh, certainly, if she is not more comfortable out there. I wish you would bring her, though, for I want to see her eyes." I slipped over the carpet. "Come, Miss Benette, and hear what Miss Lawrence is saying." She looked a little more serious with surprise, but followed me across the room and took the next chair beyond mine. Santonio came up too, but Miss Lawrence said, "Go,—you have heard it before;" and he, having to play again next, retired with careful dignity.
"You must know that once on a time,—which means about three months ago,"—began Miss Lawrence, as if she were reading the introductory chapter of a new novel, "I wanted some country air and some hard practice. I cannot get either in London, where I live, and I determined to combine the two. So I took a cottage in a lone part of Scotland,—mountainous Scotland; but no one went with me except my maid, and we took care together of a grand pianoforte which I hired in Edinburgh, and carried on with me, van and all.
"It was glorious weather just then, and when I arrived at my cottage I found it very difficult to practise, though very charming to play; and I played a great deal,—often all the day until the evening, when I invariably ascended my nearest hill, and inhaled the purest air in the whole world. My maid went always with me; and at such seasons I left my pianoforte sometimes shut, and sometimes open, as it happened, in my parlor, which had a splendid prospect, and very wide windows opening to the garden in front. I allowed these windows to remain open always when I went out, and I have often found Beethoven's sonatas strewed over the lawn when the wind blew freshly, as very frequently it did. You may believe I often prolonged my strolls until the sun had set and the moon arisen. So one time it happened, I had been at work the whole day upon a crabbed copy of studies by Bach and Handel that my music-seller had smuggled for me from an old bureau in a Parisian warehouse,—for you must know such studies are rarely to be found."
"Why not?" asked I, rather abruptly, just as if it had been Millicent who was speaking.