“May papa come up?”
“I haf always lofed to please you, mees,” said “Pretty.” “But I haf nevaire learn moosic. I haf none other but vary old moosic.”
There were, indeed, some old, yellow sheets of foreign music lying in the bottom of the case; but Felice did not take them out. “I know in my heart this moosic—father’s lofely moosic.”
She lifted the instrument to her bosom. She laid her clear, dark cheek against it lovingly, in the unconscious fashion of the true lovers of the violin; her fingers, long, supple, dark, sounded the chords; the bow gleamed and glanced as it sought the strings; and, bending over it, “Pretty’s” young face paled and flushed gloriously, as the father’s “lofely moosic” stirred her two listeners to tears.
The child mistress talked to papa in a very excited manner as he bore her away on his shoulder to the breakfast-room. Papa listened, papa thought, and, finally, papa assented.
“I think so, dear. She is worth it! There are only you and I to spend the money, and why shall we not do as we like, birdie?”
So little lame Miss Redfern was to be a Patron of Music. That was almost as good as to be a musician.
“Pretty” could refuse nothing to her dear little mistress. In her loving simplicity she did as she was bidden, even to the trying on of one handsome dress after another when she was taken to the fine shops. And at night, after the hair-dresser was done with the soft curls of her brown hair, and she stood before the mirror in her lace frills and silk dress, she simply said in her soft, limited English, “You have made me mose lofely, Mees Looloo.”
In the evening, when the invited guests—bearded and spectacled men, and fine and gracious women—were gathered down in the gardens below, among the lighted trees and the fountains and the arbors, the tall, simple “Pretty” obeyed her mistress again without a question. Lifting her violin to her bosom, she came out upon the balcony, and played once more the old Italian music. With bared heads and silent lips the company of musicians stood to listen.