“What?” asked Franz, startled by his singular manner.
“Do you hear it?”
“Hear what?”
“The music.”
“Music!” exclaimed Franz, dropping his voice also to a whisper, and involuntarily suspending his breath for a moment—“no, I hear no music.”
“It did not seem like the piano or organ. It must have been the wind in the trees outside, but it sounded just like a strain of music. We had better go, or we may waken her,” said Mr. Cory, as he turned to the door, and drew one hand across his forehead, where the perspiration had collected in drops, although the evening was cold and the air chilly.
Franz followed him out, springing the latch gently with his hand as it caught, and they both went back to the piano-room. Here Mr. Cory seemed to recover somewhat of his usual composure.
“Well, Erckman, she does look thin and delicate-like, but sewing won’t hurt her, not a bit. She’ll be better when she’s got something to do. She can’t exist on air, and she can’t live in idleness. She has got nothing, and it’s the only way I know of she can make her living. She must do work of some kind for support.”
Before Franz’s eyes there floated visions of broad and fertile acres, of fine cattle, of fine clothes, of fine houses, but “she must do work of some kind for support,” so he said nothing, while the church-elder continued,—
“There is James Maxwell going to the city to-morrow, and my wife said we had better send her to the school by him.”