"Might you be a friend of his?" asked the landlady. "Once when he was sick abed, and I came up to say a good word, he got sociabler than usual, and spoke of a lady, a lady of quality, who'd heard him play—I thought likely it was before he came here with his coat so seedy—a lady who thought he was very fine. Perhaps I don't understand about fiddle-playing, and he is all he says. Might you be the lady?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" said Emmie, scarcely knowing what she said.
The landlady looked much interested. "Well, now, I thought as much, for I don't think he's any one in the world belonging to him. He's a good lad, ma'am," she said again, with a good-natured impulse to make hay for a fellow-creature while this, possibly a sun, was shining. "He deserves better than he gets, if I do say it. He works at them music-books for hours sometimes, at night, till the man below is fit to go mad. But I tell him I can't put out a lodger that pays more frequent than he, and when I speak to Drastus he says he'll leave, though he should have to sleep on the pavement—he must play when he pleases. He says that it's because he can't play as other fiddle-men do, from a book and in a particular way, that he can't get nothing to do but play in the streets. So he must learn, and learn he will, and he scrapes away like a meeting of cats on the roof. I'm sorry he's out, ma'am. What did you want with him, now? Couldn't I give your message—or must you wait yourself?"
"I will wait—I will wait."
"He may not be home till night. He sometimes even—"
"Oh, leave me, my good woman!" moaned Emmie. "What else can I do but wait?"
And the landlady, taking pity on what seemed to her an inordinate perturbation of spirit, left the visitor to herself, returning now and then to listen, and bringing up once an inquiry from the coachman.
Emmie remained sitting on the edge of the bed. After a time she rose and looked with pointless minuteness at everything in the room, opening every drawer and reading every paper. She found all her letters tied in a bundle and wrapped in a silk neckerchief of her own, old, and that she had never missed. He had few possessions, and they made the heart sick to pore over.
The light faded off the dull glass overhead. With chilled fingers she felt for the candle and lighted it. The landlady, coming up at dark, insisted on bringing her a cup of tea. The good creature had so disciplined her curiosity concerning the history implied in this gentlewoman's presence here that her delicacy now in endeavoring to discover was touching. Yet it went unrewarded. She stayed for the satisfaction of seeing the lady, who she thought looked fairly ill, refresh herself; and when it was delayed, tried by example to institute in the atmosphere that cheerfulness which is conducive to a better appetite—until asked again, with an imploring glance from eyes like a shot dove's, to go, for the sake of pity to go.