“Has she sung for you since I left?”
“Not a bar. Probably she has been busy, helping to put the house to rights.”
“Let us hope she will sing for us to-night.”
“Let us hope so.”
But bed-time stole upon them, and their hopes had not yet been rewarded.
The week wound away. Nothing new transpired concerning the occupants of No. 46. Mrs. Lehmyl sang almost every evening. But neither Arthur nor Hetzel nor Josephine succeeded in getting sight of her; which, of course, merely aggravated our hero’s curiosity. Sunday afternoon he stood at the front window, gazing toward the corner house. The two cats, heretofore mentioned, were disporting themselves upon the window-ledge.
Hetzel, who was seated in the back part of the room, noticed that Arthur’s attitude changed all at once from that of languid interest to that of sharp attention. His backbone became rigid, his neck craned forward; it was evident that something had happened. Presently he turned around, and remarked, with ill-disguised excitement, “If—if you’re anxious to make the acquaintance of that Mrs. Lehmyl, here’s your chance.”
It struck Hetzel that this was pretty good. “If I am anxious to make her acquaintance!” he said to himself. Aloud, “Why, how is that?” he asked.
“Oh,” said Arthur, “two ladies—she and Mrs. Hart, I suppose—have just left the corner house, and crossed the street, and entered our front door—to call on Mrs. Berle, doubtless.”
Mrs. Berle was the down-stairs neighbor of our friends—a middle-aged Jewish lady, whose husband, a commercial traveler, was commonly away from home.