Jo felt, now, the uplifted face.
"No, but I would have been, off there! And I couldn't play. What good would anything have been, if I couldn't play?"
Jo was thoroughly alarmed.
"Can you play here?" she asked, bewildered, not knowing what to think, but seeking to calm the girl on the floor.
"Why, Mamsey, let me try!"
And Donelle tried, rising stiffly, fixing the violin and raising the bow.
A moment of indecision, of fear; then the radiance drove the haggard lines from the tired, white face.
She could play! She walked about the plain home-room. She forgot Jo, forgot her troubles, she knew everything was all right now! The final answer had been given her! When she finished she stood before Jo, and Nick crept toward her. He, too, felt that something, which had been very wrong, was righted.
Mrs. Lindsay came later. She was alarmed and angry. She and Jo attacked poor Donelle's position and were indignant that they were obliged to do so; they, women and wise; she, a stubborn and helpless girl!
"I couldn't leave Mamsey," was her only reply, and she looked faint from struggle.