A young girl in pink chiffon, with a bunch of huge pink roses, fluttered forward with a program.
Uncle William took it in pleased fingers. He searched for his spectacles and mounted them on his nose, staring at the printed lines. The audience had settled down to attention. Amused glances traveled toward the big figure absorbed in its program. Sergia had whispered a word here and there as she left the room. It made its way back through the crowd—“A friend of Mademoiselle Lvova’s—a sea-captain. She has brought him to hear the MacDowell pieces.” The audience smiled and relaxed. The music was beginning. Two young girls played a concerto from Rubenstein, with scared, flying fingers. They were relieved when it was done, and the audience clapped long and loud. Some one brought them bunches of flowers—twin lilies, tied exactly alike, with long white ribbons. Uncle William, his spectacles pushed up on the tufts of hair, watched with admiring glance as they escaped from the stage. He turned to his right-hand neighbor, an old gentleman with white hair and big, smooth, soft hands, who had watched the performance with gentle care.
“Putty girls,” said Uncle William, cordially.
The man looked at him, smiling. “One of them is my granddaughter, sir,” he responded affably.
She came from the door by the platform and sat down near her grandfather, the lilies and the long white ribbons trailing from nervous fingers. Uncle William leaned forward and smiled at her, nodding encouragement.
She replied with a quick, shy smile and fixed her eyes on the platform.
More pupils followed—young girls and old ones, and a youth with a violin that fluttered and wailed and grew harmonious at last as the youth forgot himself. Uncle William’s big, round face beamed upon him. Sergia, watching him from behind the scenes, could see that he regarded them all as nice children. He would have looked the same had they played on jews’-harps and tin horns. But he was enjoying it. She was glad of that.
She came out during the intermission to speak with him. “They’re all through now,” she said encouragingly.
He looked down at his program bewildered, and a little disappointed, she thought. “They got ’em all done?—I didn’t hear that ’Wanderin’ Iceberg’ one,” he said regretfully. “I cal’ated to listen to that. But I was so interested in the children that I clean forgot.—They’re nice children.” He looked about the room where they were laughing and talking in groups. “Time to go, is it?”
“Not yet. That was only the first half—the pupils’ half. The rest is what I wanted you to hear—the sea-pieces and the others. They are played by real musicians.”