“You play first rate, I should say,” he went on. “You mustn’t think I didn’t like it; I did. It was only that—well, that blasted room and—and the music together were— Humph! Well, there! Sit down and tell me about your singing. Who has been teaching you?”
She told him. Mr. Cornelius Gott, the undertaker’s assistant, sang in the choir, taught singing school in the winter, and a few pupils in private. His voice was a high tenor and his charges low. Townsend grunted when his name was mentioned.
“I wouldn’t hire that fellow to learn my dog to howl,” he declared. “We’ll find somebody better than that for you, if we have to send to Boston. Who picked him out?”
Esther resented this contemptuous dismissal of the teacher whom she had considered rather wonderful. He was young and very polite and sported a most becoming mustache.
“Aunt Reliance got him to teach me,” she said. “He didn’t want to do it at first, for she couldn’t pay his regular prices. If it hadn’t been for her I shouldn’t have had any one. He taught me to play, too. We think he is splendid.”
Her uncle ignored the defiance in her tone. He pulled his beard.
“Reliance Clark is an able woman,” he observed, reflectively. “It must have meant considerable scrimping on her part to pay even what that numskull charged. She’s done well by you, I’ll say that for her.”
It needed only this reference to her beloved aunt to bring the tears to the girl’s eyes.
“I love her better than any one else in the world,” she announced, impulsively. “And I always shall.”
He looked at her. Then he smiled.