"Thank you, ma'am!" said Hilda. "This mark of trust is most gratifying, I assure you. 'Not tell any living soul except your mother, dear.' Now how do you feel, madam?"
"Dear Jack!" said Mrs. Grahame, softly. "Dear lad! of course I shall like to hear it. Go on, Hilda, and I promise not to interrupt again."
"The day after the last concert—it was only day before yesterday, but it seems an age—I went to take my lesson, and my master was not there. He is often late, so I just took out some music and began to play over the things I had studied. There was a sonata of Rubinstein's, very splendid, that has quite possessed me lately. I played that, and I suppose I forgot where I was and all about it, for I went on and on, never hearing a sound except just the music. You must hear it when I come back, Hilda. It begins in the minor, and then there is the most superb sweep up into the major; your heart seems to sweep up with it, and you find yourself in another world, where everything is divine harmony. I'm talking nonsense, I know, but that piece just sends me off my head altogether. Well, at last I finished it and came down from the clouds, and when I turned around, Hilda, there was the maestro himself, standing and listening. Well! you can't go through the floor and all that sort of thing, as they do in the fairy-books, but I did wish I was a mouse, or a flea, or anything smaller that there is. He stood still a minute. Perhaps he was afraid I would behave like some asses the other day—they weren't Americans, I am happy to say—who met him, and went down on their knees in the hotel entry, and took bits of mud from his shoes for a keepsake; they truly did, the horrid pigs! And he just said 'Dummkopfer!' and went off and left them kneeling there. Wasn't that jolly? Well, I say, he might have thought I would act like that, and yet I don't believe he did, for he had the kindest, friendliest look on his face. He came forward and held out his hand, and said, 'So you play the great sonata, my son; and love it, too, I perceive.'
"I don't know exactly what I said,—some rubbish about how much I cared for it; but I stammered mostly, and got all kinds of colours. I guess you can tell pretty much how I behaved, though I really am getting to be not quite so much of a muff. Anyhow, he seemed to understand, and nodded, and said, 'Give me now the violin, for there are things you understand not yet in the piece.'
"Oh, Hilda! he took my violin in his own hands, and played for me. Think of it! the greatest master in the world, all alone with me there, and playing like—like—well, I don't know how to say what I mean, so you'll have to imagine it for yourself. He went all through it, stopping once in a while to explain to me, and to describe this or that shade of expression or turn of the wrist. It was the most splendid lesson any one ever had, I believe. But that is not the best, and I hardly like to tell even you the rest. You may think I am just bluffing, and anyhow,—but it is the truth, so—well, after about half an hour my master came in, and of course he was delighted, and highly honoured, and bowing and scraping and all. But the maestro came and put his hand on my shoulder, and said, 'Friend, will you give me up this pupil, hein?'
"I don't mind if you don't believe it; I didn't myself, but thought I was asleep and dreaming it all. 'I will give you in exchange two others,' he said. 'The fat English lady has shortness of breath, and cannot keep my hours of work, and the young Russian makes eyes at me, which is not to be endured. Will you take them, both very rich, and give me in exchange this child?'
"Of course there is only one answer, you know; it is like when a king asks for anything. And besides, Herr Geiger is so good and kind, he was really perfectly delighted at my having the great chance,—the chance of a lifetime. So I am going this afternoon to take my first regular lesson from the great master of the world, and I don't deserve it, Hilda, and I wonder why everything is done so for me, and such happiness given to a fellow like me, when there are hundreds of other fellows who deserve it a great deal more. I know what you and your mother would say, and I do feel it, and I am thankful, I truly think, with all my heart, and I hope I shall be a better fellow in every way, and try to make some return. I couldn't go without telling you. Of course I wrote a line to the governor first. He will be so happy! And of course if it hadn't been for him, I never should have had any music, or any violin, or anything; and without you and your mother, Hilda, I never should have come here, that is certain. So I don't see very clear, sometimes, when I think about you and him.
"Time for the lesson now. Good-bye! I am the happiest fellow in the world! Best love to your mother, and uncle—no! shall write to him by this mail.
"Always your affectionate