“The Babe seems to be growin’ older-like this summer,” mused his father. “He ain’t to say manlier, but he’s different.”
“Do you think so?” said Miss Brooks, startled. Her color faded to ivory. She was sitting in a hammock, and occasionally stretched out a sandaled foot to propel it. The old man felt her beauty with a dumb jealousy of all bright young creatures who had not been robbed, like his boy, of their birthright.
Jerome came later in the afternoon, and found his daily companion still in her hammock, but changed toward him.
He had just finished an æolian harp for her. It had required days to properly season the wood, and other days to assort the colors and dry the glue which held different layers together. The instrument was a thing of beauty, with even little keys to wind the strings. He had worked over it with all his faculties excited; and now when he stood before her, holding it very tenderly on his arm, she scarcely looked at it.
But Jerome knew what to do. He moved off with his harp and fixed it in the low fork of a tree. Then he raised its bridges, and turned to watch her face. The harp sighed, and began on a high key “The Last Rose of Summer,” but after two or three bars, lost its score in a flood of delicious organ harmonies. Now it rose to a cry in the zenith, and now it returned to the “Last Rose,” and died to a whisper of melody. It was the passionate revelation of a human heart.
Jerome smiled and nodded his head; for the girl’s chin and lips trembled. She let her book slip down the hammock.
“Talks,” insisted Jerome, claiming her attention for the harp. “I made it to talk to you.”
“But it’s so sorrowful,” said Lilian.
“It—isn’t—quite right,” explained Jerome. “Can’t carry its tune.”
“And you made it for me?”