“I suppose you think only Methodist hymns worth listening to,” responded Miss Newton, rather sneeringly.
I don’t like to be sneered at. I suppose nobody does. But it does not make me feel timid and yield, as it seems to do many: it only makes me angry.
“Well,” said I, “listen how much this is worth.”
Amelia drew off her gloves with a listless air which I believe she thought exceedingly genteel. I cannot undertake to describe her song: it was one of those queer lackadaisical ditties which always remind me of those tunes which go just where you don’t expect them to go, and end nowhere. I hate them. And I don’t like the songs much better. Of course there was a lady wringing her hands—why do people in ballads wring their hands so much? I never saw anybody do it in my life—and a cavalier on a coal-black steed, and a silvery moon; what would become of the songwriters if there were no moon and no sea?—and “she sat and wailed,” and he did something or other, I could not exactly hear what; and at last he, or she, or both of them (only that would not suit the grammar) “was at rest,” and I was thankful to hear it, for Amelia stopped singing.
“How sweet and sad!” said Miss Newton.
“Do you like that kind of song? I think it is rubbish.”
She laughed with that little deprecating air which she often uses to me. I looked up to see who was going to sing next: and to my extreme surprise, and almost equal pleasure, I saw Annas sit down to the harp.
“Oh, Miss Keith is going to sing!” cried I. “I should like to hear hers.”
“A Scottish ballad, no doubt,” replied Miss Newton.
There was a soft, low, weird-like prelude: and then came a voice like that of a thrush, at which every other in the room seemed to hush instinctively. Each word was clear.