“Yes.” A shy “Yes” it was.
“My dear, that will never do—young people’s sunshine should not be overshadowed by old people’s clouds. Now, do you know what I want you to do?”
“No, dear Madame Giche.”
“To come down and sing to me.”
The beautiful mellow-toned piano from the drawing-room had been removed to the tapestried chamber, and a new one sent from London to fill its place. Quite little musical parties did the aged lady have, now and then, of an evening, in the gloaming, the four children, with lights at the piano, trilling in their bird-like voices some little snatch of a juvenile song, duet, trio, and [p101] sometimes a quartette, their nimble fingers wandering among the keys the while in a tangle of melody. But of all the four, their aged listener loved best to hear Inna sing: her voice was so plaintive, so expressive. The charm lay in this: that she was always thinking of her mother at such times, and her heart seemed to speak in her voice. It did to-night, when she sat down to the piano, her gentle old friend on the hearth by the smouldering log fire.
“Sing that little thing I heard you practising so nicely yesterday,” came to her across the room. So, with a tinkling little prelude, she began—
“A daisy wept in the moonlight pale,
And bowed her beautiful head,
And a little white moth came dancing by—
‘Why weep, sweet daisy?’ it said.