"Well, Amy, child," cried Jack, when they had gone through with the preliminaries always religiously observed on his visits: how she had progressed in her music under the new teacher Miss Pepper had recommended during her enforced absence, and how far she had pleased Miss Salisbury, and all the other things an elder brother who had come to his conscience rather late, would be apt to look into. "And so you really think you are getting on in your practice?"
"O, yes, Jack!" cried Amy confidently. "Come and see; I've a new
Beethoven for you," and she laid hold of his arm with eager fingers.
"Now, you'll be immensely surprised, Jack—immensely."
"No doubt, no doubt," answered Jack hastily, and not offering to get up from the sofa, "but you needn't play it now."
"Why, Jack," cried Amy, no little offended, "what's the matter? You've asked me regularly to play you my pieces, and now to-night when I offer to, you won't have any of it," and she began to pout.
"That's shabby in me," declared Jack, with remorse; and getting off the sofa, to his feet, he dutifully spread the music on the rack, and paid his little sister such attention, that she was soon smilingly launched into the new piece, and lost to everything else but her own melody.
"That's fine!" pronounced Jack, as Amy declared herself through, and whirled around on the music-stool for his applause. But his heart wasn't in it, and Amy's blue eyes soon found it out.
"You're not a bit like yourself to-night, Brother Jack," she cried, with another pout and staring at him.
"You're right; I'm not, Amy," declared Jack. "Come over to the sofa, and
I'll tell you about it."
So the two turned their backs on the piano; and pretty soon, Amy, her hand in her brother's big brown palm, was nestled up against him, and hearing a confidence that made her small soul swell with delight.
"Amy," said Jack, putting his arm closer around her, "when Miss Pepper had the courage to tell me of my duty to you, I made up my mind that you should never want for anything that my hand could supply."