Lulu lifted her head. She knew in a moment that this was real music. Enchanting as were her dreams by both night and day, no one so clear-headed as the little mistress. She had sat and listened too often for coming and going feet, for closing doors, to be mistaken as to the source of any sound. This midnight music came from “Pretty’s” room; and she who loved reed, and pipe, and horn, and string so well, knew that it was the rarest violin-music.
It was entrancingly sweet. Air after air entirely unknown to the little music lover floated out on the still midnight. Poor little Miss Redfern! She buried her face in her pillows and sobbed in an ecstasy of happiness. “Now I know what it is so pure, so high, that I see in my Pretty’s face. It is that which is in the faces of all the artists that come here. My Pretty is no servant. Papa said that she looked as if she could do all these things—papa felt she was an artist. Papa could not help bring her, I could not help keep her,—O, my own Pretty!”
By and by the music ceased; and, listening, Lulu heard the violin deposited in the box.
She looked bright as a bird when her maid came to lift her to the bath, next morning. “Ah, Mees Looloo, I wish you a lofely good morning.”
“It is both lovely and good, dear Pretty,” said the child-mistress, stooping to kiss the long artist fingers busy with her sleeve-buttons. “I understand these fingers now.”
“Haf you not always understood their mooch slow ways, Mees Looloo?”
“Mees Looloo” clasped the two strong, nervous hands close to her breast. “Pretty! I know what they were made for; they are the musician’s hands. I heard you last night. I heard a violin in your room. How could you have it here, Pretty, and not bring it out when I am often so tired and need to be soothed?”
“O, Mees Looloo, I haf not thought. I haf played when I could not haf sleep to mine eyes, and haf thought of Etalee.”
Then Lulu heard the simple story. It was the violin belonging to Felice’s father, and Felice had handled it from her babyhood. She had brought it to America and had carried it from place to place with her. Nobody had cared; nobody had questioned the poor young chambermaid.
But “Mees Looloo” cared. “Pretty” brought the violin as simply as if bidden to bring a flower or a book. It was old, dark, rich—mellow in its hues as in its tones.