"It is stupid of me, I think I never heard the words except those two lines 'White wings they never grow weary—I'll think of my dearie—'" and she finished the "Fly away home," with a charming gesture of her little hands and a triumphant warbling of the tune.
Can you wonder that they loved this amazing person who tugged their hearts this way and that with ail the dear old songs that those they'd loved best had once sung to them? Janet's crooning Scotch songs, Molly's wistful Irish ballads, Margot's naughty French and Marthy's sentimental loves, Grandy's English favorites too, it seemed as though she could never give them enough of them—ten minutes! They'd have kept her an hour if they could! She talked, she hummed, she played her lute—but best of all she whistled for them because they liked her— little Mademoiselle Folly!
Last of all, she stood very quietly and looked at them while they were still laughing over something she'd picked up from Zeb, a ridiculous scrap of New England,
"Pretend I'm Eunice making the gol-_dern_est huckleberry pie and that
I'm singing,
"'Once upon a time I had a feller
Way down in Maine. AND
He took me home under his umbreller—'
"There is just one more I can do for you. I am a vairee little tired, perhaps you are too. This song you have heard before tonight. I heard this music playing it. Perhaps we can make them play it again. It was Piqueur who told me this song. Piqueur is a vairee old gardener, who once was a soldier. He fought in battle. He was hurt vairee much. His head has nevaire been quite right since then. But some one taught him to be a vairee good gardener and that made him forget how frightful war had been. But in the spring, because spring makes all of us remember when we were young, Piqueur would remember—war. He used to tell me about it while we planted the garden. Early in the morning when the sun was rising. And he would sing this song, in French of course. It was Margot who told me what the words meant. You know them—
"Ye sons of France, awake to Glory!
Hark! Hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives and grandsires hoary—"
The violinist caught up his bow, the orchestra leader was on his feet. Felicia was not smiling any more; her great eyes burned with excitement; she saw Piqueur singing; she heard Piqueur trying to tell her about war—she did not mute her whistle. She let it ring—
And after that they stood on their feet and whistled and sang and cheered with her while she poured out her whole heart at them, gave them her whole self until her tears blinded her and she turned and ran away. To the blessed shelter of the wings where some one opened comfortable arms and let her weep.
Nor could her rapturous audience get so much as even a little glimpse of her again.