“No,” but he clasped his hands nervously together.
“Oh, father, you did not forget about it, did you?” she asked eagerly. “I have so often and often thought of it, though I did not say any thing, but it is strange I never once thought about the practising. Oh, you could not have forgotten it, father?”
She was so intensely earnest, it seemed as if her whole soul was in the question, trembling while it awaited the reply.
“No, I have not forgotten it,” said Franz, “It has hardly been out of my mind one moment for many weeks; but I have nothing to play.”
At first, her face had been perfectly radiant; but, when he added the last clause, she got up, put her arms about his neck, and said, with a kind of terror in her voice,—
“Oh, no, no! You will play, father—tell me you will play!”
Franz moved uneasily in his seat.
“And it will be something grand, father. Oh, you will please everybody—I am not afraid of that. Quick, tell me you will play. Father, if you did not—I can not bear to think of it—oh, you will—say you will!”
Her entreaty had fairly grown into wild desperation. Every fiber of her frame quivered as she clung to him. Alarmed at her singular agitation, he took her up on his knee, and said, hurriedly,—
“Yes, yes; I will play. Do not be troubled about it; I will play.”