'Then why aren’t you really glad? I thought you would be, mother.'
There was no resisting that appeal in Victoria’s voice. Never in her life had she failed her daughter. Was she to fail her in this hour?
'You seem like a little girl to me, Victoria,' she found voice to say, at last. 'I guess all mothers feel like this when their daughters tell them they are going to leave them. I reckon I never understood until just now, why my mother acted just like she did when I told her your father and I were going to be married.'
Victoria laughed joyously. 'I’m not a little girl. I’m a woman. And, mother, Jim is so good. He wants to be married right away. He says he can’t bear to think of waiting. But he said I was to tell you that if you couldn’t spare me for a while, it would be all right.'
There was pride in her lover’s generosity. But deeper than that was the woman’s pride in the knowledge that he could not 'bear to think of waiting.'
'It isn’t that I can’t spare you, dear,' said her mother. 'But, O Victoria, I’d wanted to have you go off and study to be a fine musician. I’ve dreamed of it ever since you were born.'
'But I couldn’t go even if it wasn’t for Jim. Where would we ever get the money? Anyway, mother, Jim is going to buy me a piano. What do you think of that?'
'A piano?'
'Yes. He has been saving money for it for years. He says I play too well for an old-fashioned organ. And on our wedding trip we’re going to Chicago, and we’re going to pick it out there, and we’re going to a concert and to a theatre and to some show that has music in it.'
In spite of herself, Emmeline Black was dazzled. In all her life she never had gone to the city except in her dreams. Until that far-off day of magic when Victoria should be a fine musician, she had never hoped to replace the squeaky little organ with a piano.