"Yes, that is what I played, and what I very seldom do play; but I thought you should hear it!"
"I!" I cried, much too loud under the circumstances; but I could not have helped it. "It was very kind of you, but I don't know why you should. But it is by him then?"
"You have said!" answered Miss Lawrence, laughing,—"at least I think so. And if you and I agree, no doubt we are right."
"No, I don't see that at all," I replied; for it was a thing I could not allow. "I am only a little boy, and you are a great player, and grown up. Besides, you saw his shadow."
"Do you think so? Well, I thought so myself, though it may possibly have been the shadow of somebody else."
Miss Lawrence here stopped, that she might laugh; and as she laughed, her deep eyes woke up and shone like fire-flies glancing, to and fro. Very Spanish she seemed then, and very Jewish withal. I had never seen a Spaniard I suppose then, but I conceive I had met with prints of Murillo's "Flower-girl;" for her eyes were the only things I could think of while Miss Lawrence laughed.
"At all events," she at last continued, "the 'Tone-wreath' is no shadow." I was astonished here to perceive that Clara had raised her eyes,—indeed, they looked fully into those of the speaker.
"He came from Germany, you can be sure at least."
"Why so, Miss Benette?" replied Miss Lawrence, graciously, but with a slight deference very touching from one so self-sustained.
"Because it is only in that land they call music 'Tone.'"