“Indeed,” exclaimed Steve heartily. “Well, this is pleasant.”
“I should say so,” returned Raymond. “I tell you, old fellow, we never forgot that lickin’ you gave us at our school––served us right and did us good.” He launched into a hilarious account of that experience which everybody enjoyed, and there was a little pleasant, general conversation. Then Raymond suddenly exclaimed:
“Miss Nancy, where’s your banjo?” and went at once for it.
“I tell you, Steve, she can play on the old banjo and sing as no one else ever did,” he said as he returned and laid it in her lap.
Nancy turned to Steve with a quick flush which showed even in the moonlight and protested: “I 167 really don’t know a thing about it, only what father taught me when I was a little girl.”
And Mr. Follet said excitedly, “You see, Steve, she was so lonesome after you left I had to get the old thing down to cheer her up. I hadn’t played any on it since I was a young fellow courtin’ her mother. I don’t believe I’d ever got her without that banjo,” he added and laughed with great good humour. “Nancy don’t think much of it,” he went on. “She thinks it’s nothin’ beside the piano, but Raymond, here, is like me, he thinks it beats the piano all hollow.”
“Sing ‘Robin Adair,’” put in Raymond, and Nancy began striking soft minor chords for a little prelude. Then a rich, contralto voice, low and clear, told the tender old story of Robin Adair and his love, which the banjo echoed with little improvised hints of the air. Raymond and Mr. Follet called for one song after another of the old favourites, Raymond often joining in with a fine tenor, which harmonized perfectly with Nancy’s contralto. At last she sang of her own accord “The Rosary.”
There was an exquisite pathos in the beautiful, heart-breaking notes that stirred Steve deeply. What depth of feeling, as well as maidenly reserve and charm, his little Nancy had developed! The curls 168 and pinafores were gone, it was true, but as he watched her sweet, expressive face in the moonlight and felt the fullness of her sympathy and understanding in the singing, he said to himself, “I am willing to lose them for this!”
“Miss Nancy, please don’t ever sing that any more; it gives me the shivers,” said Raymond and was seconded by Mr. Follet.
“It’s bedtime for old folks, anyhow,” the latter went on, and added, “I guess Steve’s tired enough to go, too,” and though Steve was not ready to admit this, Raymond gave him gay good-night and he followed his host to the little attic room where he had slept as a boy, and which Mrs. Follet had made ready for him, because he had insisted that it was just the place for him. The house was small and he knew somebody must vacate comfortable quarters if he slept elsewhere.