“Rose-Jewel mustn’t get her feet wet. Mamma wouldn’t like that. No, they’re all right. And, now, must I tell you a story?”
The child shook her head in decided rejection of this idea, and said in an imperious voice:
“No, play.”
He did not speak at once, but reached up and took the shapeless old hat from his head, and, with a sudden jerk, shook backward the thin locks which straggled over his forehead. There was unmistakable gratification in his face, as of one who had received a welcome invitation for which he had been too humble to look.
One would have thought it likely that the child, when she spoke, would call him “Grandpapa,” but she turned her insistent gaze upon him now and said peremptorily:
“Play, Papa, play!”
As he crossed over to where his violin-case lay, there had come a sudden buoyancy into his figure, and as he lifted the instrument carefully from its case and began to tune it, his face, too, was fervid and alert. The fact became evident now, that he was not an old man. There was all the strength of youth in the sudden motion with which he braced his shoulder to the violin, and all the fire of youth was in his eyes.
The child looked upward into his face, and smiled. He returned the smile, and with a bright nod of encouragement and promise, he broke into the gay movement of a little dance tune, played with extraordinary brilliancy of execution.
“How’s that, baby? Here we go! Now the pretty lady is going down the line and holding up her pink silk dress. Listen to that! And now they are all catching hands and whirling round and round, and everybody is laughing—and here goes the music like this!”
As he fiddled away at the merry tune, bending about, and jerking his head and elbows, the child got into a state of ecstatic glee, clapped her hands and laughed aloud, and finally slipped off the sofa, caught up her skirts, and began to dance. It was done with the tottering, uneven motion of a baby, but there was extraordinary vim in it, and as the music got every moment gayer and faster, she jumped and whirled about, until her companion, with a wild laugh of delight threw down violin and bow, and caught her up in his arms, covering her with kisses, and jumping about, himself, in rather a mad fashion, with the music in his blood, as well as hers. Then growing calmer he put her back upon her cushions, and taking up his violin, said soothingly: