"I? Oh, I never sing," she said with a modest blush, and drawing back, while her heart began to flutter nervously.
"I'm quite sure you do," persisted the young lady; whereupon the request was strengthened by all voices; and conscious that it would be impolite to still refuse, Bea walked to the piano, with her fingers growing cold as ice, and a die-away feeling in her throat. It took a few minutes to spin up the stool and decide what to sing, then in a voice that would quaver, she began a little Scotch song, and was just through the first verse when things began to look strange. Was it because she was so nervous, or was it growing dark? She played a few rambling chords, then she stopped and looked at the lamp with a chilly foreboding, and—it was going out!
Somebody else had noticed it before she did, and now as she sat in blank, dazed mortification, some one crossed the room, and lifting the lamp, blew it out, saying with a careless laugh:
"Several adventurous bugs were burning themselves to death, so I have ended their, and our misery, by putting out what they were slowly killing, and now while they are being dislodged, and the lamp relighted, shall we adjourn to the porch, ladies and gentlemen? The moon is coming up gorgeously."
Bea could have gone down on her knees in gratitude to him, and Kat, the terrible, actually threw him a kiss in the dark, before she rushed out to the kitchen, where Bea had carried the lamp.
"It's all my fault, every bit," she cried remorsefully. "I thought this morning, when I cleaned the lamps, that I would wait until it got cooler to go up after the coal-oil, and then I forgot it, clean as a shingle, and I'll do anything under the sun if you'll forgive me."
"Don't talk," said Bea sharply, too excited and nervous to say much. "Go, bring every lamp in the house, quick!"
"Never mind," exclaimed Kittie, coming hurriedly in, as Kat went off on a rush. "Don't feel bad, Bea, not a soul noticed it, and you were singing beautifully; besides you just ought to look in the dining-room; there's the most magnificent cake that you ever saw, and a freezer of delicious ice-cream!"
Bea dropped the lamp-top from her trembling fingers, and turned her face with incredulous relief and delight.
"Oh, Kittie!"