Barbara was surprised and shocked.
"Why, Uncle Jed!" she cried. "You sing EVER so much. I heard you singing this morning."
Jed nodded. "Ye-es," he drawled, "but I was alone then and I'm liable to take chances with my own health. Bluey Batcheldor was in the shop last week, though, when I was tunin' up and it disagreed with HIM."
"I don't believe it, Uncle Jed," with righteous indignation. "How do you know it did?"
"'Cause he said so. He listened a spell, and then said I made him sick, so I took his word for it."
Captain Sam laughed uproariously. "You must be pretty bad then, Jed," he declared. "Anybody who disagrees with Bluey Batcheldor must be pretty nigh the limit."
Jed nodded. "Um-hm," he said, reflectively, "pretty nigh, but not quite. Always seemed to me the real limit was anybody who agreed with him."
So Jed, with Babbie on his knee, sat in the corner of the bay window looking out on the street, while Mrs. Armstrong and her brother and Miss Hunniwell played and sang and the captain applauded vigorously and loudly demanded more. After a time Ruth left the group at the piano and joined Jed and her daughter by the window. Captain Hunniwell came a few minutes later.
"Make a good-lookin' couple, don't they?" he whispered, bending down, and with a jerk of his head in the direction of the musicians. "Your brother's a fine-lookin' young chap, Mrs. Armstrong. And he acts as well as he looks. Don't know when I've taken such a shine to a young feller as I have to him. Yes, ma'am, they make a good-lookin' couple, even if one of 'em is my daughter."
The speech was made without the slightest thought or suggestion of anything but delighted admiration and parental affection. Nevertheless, Ruth, to whom it was made, started slightly, and, turning, regarded the pair at the piano. Maud was fingering the pages of a book of college songs and looking smilingly up into the face of Charles Phillips, who was looking down into hers. There was, apparently, nothing in the picture—a pretty one, by the way— to cause Mrs. Armstrong to gaze so fixedly or to bring the slight frown to her forehead. After a moment she turned toward Jed Winslow. Their eyes met and in his she saw the same startled hint of wonder, of possible trouble, she knew he must see in hers. Then they both looked away.