“No! Oh, no! I would not until I had asked you, of course!” gasped Miss Jane. “Why, I haven't had time! I only knew we were going to have a pipe organ this evening!”
“Perhaps you had better let me arrange it,” said David. “I think perhaps Doctor Benedict can manage it, although Mademoiselle is giving up her pupils, Benedict says. Father Moran is worried about her health; Benedict says Mademoiselle is trying to do too much. She is giving up all but her two or three most promising pupils. But in a case like this—Shall I speak to Benedict?”
“Oh, will you? Will you?” cried little Miss Jane ecstatically. “Oh, if you will!”
David smiled in the darkness. But a day or two before, when Doc Benedict had dropped into the manse to sit awhile in David's study under the motto “Keep an even mind under all circumstances,” David had scolded him whimsically for unfaithfulness.
“I don't see you once in a blue moon any more, Benedict,” he had said. “I grow stale for someone to wrangle with. You're a false and fickle friend. Who is your latest passion? Father Moran?”
“Don't you say anything against Father Moran!” Benedict threatened. “It's a pity you're not both Presbyterians, or both Catholics, Davy. You'd love each other. You'd have some beautiful fights. I can't hold my own against him; he's too much for me. He's a fine old man, Davy,” he added, and then, smiling, “and he knows good sherry and good cigars.”
“What do you talk about, over your good sherry and good cigars?” asked David.
“Last night,” said Benedict, “it was music. He had me there, Davy. No man has a right to know as much about as many things as Father Moran knows. Of course, if I had a niece like Mademoiselle I might know about Beethoven and Chopin and all those fellows. He scolded me about our church music. I went for him, of course, on that; bragged about our choir. 'Ah, yes I' he smiled through that thick, brown beard of his; 'and I 'ave heard of your organ!' He gave me an imitation of it through his nose. Then he called Mademoiselle and took me into the church and made her play a thing or two—an 'Elevation' and an 'Ave Maria.' He had me, all right, Davy. It was holy music, Davy!”
So David, remembering, spoke to Benedict about Miss Jane's desire, and Benedict spoke to Father Moran. The old doctor knew just how to handle the good-natured priest, whose eyes were deep in crow's-feet from countless quizzical smiles.
“Why, Father, you yourself were howling and complaining about our church music the other night! Scolding me, you were. And now I give you a chance to better the thing you scolded me about, and you hesitate! Oh, tut! about Mademoiselle's health! Let her give up another of her fancy, arts-and-graces pupils. I prescribe Miss Hurley for Mademoiselle's health. And don't you dare go against her physician's orders!”