"No," said Joseph; "it is not to be wondered at; for it's clear to me the old gentleman plied a good bow. I can see that plain enough."
"Tell us how you see it," said Mary, more interested than she would have liked to show.
"Easily," he answered. "There was one poem"—he pronounced it pome —"you read just now—"
"Which? which?" interrupted Mary, eagerly.
"That I can not tell you; but, all the time you were reading it, I heard the gentleman—Mr. George Herbert, you call him—playing the tune to it."
"If you heard him so well," ventured Mary, "you could, I fancy, play the tune over again to us."
"I think I could," he answered, and, rising, went for his instrument, which he always brought, and hung on an old nail in the wall the moment he came in.
He played a few bars of a prelude, as if to get himself into harmony with the recollection of what he had heard the master play, and then began a lively melody, in which he seemed as usual to pour out his soul. Long before he reached the end of it, Mary had reached the poem.
"This is the one you mean, is it not?" she said, as soon as he had finished—and read it again.
In his turn he did not speak till she had ended.