So they went down to the great room, which was cold, with a recently-lighted fire in each of the two grates, and dimly lighted, for there was no gas, and the illumination consisted of a dozen wax candles. Chris, who had put on a dress square in the neck, in honour of the occasion, in spite of her mother’s warnings, shivered, but the sight of the great pile of music on two tables in the middle of the room made her forget the cold.
Mrs. Abercarne sighed at her daughter’s exclamations. She felt very much inclined to echo the sentiment. Certainly her own happiness had belonged to the time when she had been well off, before frocks had to be turned, and last year’s bonnets furbished up.
Mr. Bradfield had not yet come in from the dining-room, so Chris could chatter on at her ease.
“To think of being able to get everything one wanted, just by sending to town for it. No question whether it costs sixpence or ten pounds. To be able to look into the windows without considering that four and elevenpence three farthings is five shillings. Oh! mother,” and she pounced upon a waltz, and a song, and a gavotte, which she felt sure she should like, “I feel as if I were living in an enchanted palace, and as if Mr. Bradfield were the good fairy.”
“Mr. Bradfield is very much obliged to you, I’m sure,” said the owner of the house, who had come in very quietly, attracted by the sound of her bright voice from the adjoining room, “It’s a more flattering comparison than you made to me at first, if I remember rightly.”
But Chris was too happy to be troubled by this reminiscence.
“That was nothing to what you may expect if you come upon me without warning when I don’t feel very good,” said she.
“Let us hear some of the music, Chris,” said her mother, afraid that the girl’s sauciness might offend the great man.
But Mr. Bradfield was inclined to take everything the young girl said in good part. He even offered to turn the leaves of her music, with apologies for his clumsiness, which was indeed extreme. Chris, who, although not a performer of special excellence, read music well and with spirit, was in an ecstasy of girlish enjoyment, and she communicated the contagion to her older companions. Mr. Bradfield was good humour itself; Mrs. Abercarne was the perfection of graciousness. He hunted out some old photographic albums, the portraits of which she inspected minutely through her double eye-glasses, with the most flattering comments imagination could suggest.
“You needn’t be so polite unless you really like it,” he said, drily, when she had just found the word “intellectual” to describe a very grim female face; “they’re only relations.”