"You are sure you have the right books, Barbara?"
"Quite sure; I know them perfectly."
"Many thanks to you both, and good-night."
Millicent was in a wakeful mood that night. She went to the piano and played for an hour or two, as she only played when alone. Her hands drifted dreamily over the key-board, drawing out fantastic melodies,--themes which were composed and forgotten within the hour. In an obscure corner of the room stood a head of Beethoven. Her eyes were fixed on the face of the master while she played, and as the notes grew strong and sweet she smiled; when the harmony changed to a tender minor strain, the smile faded from her face. The music expressed the thoughts which drifted through her mind. At first she played the quick movement of a march, through which rang out the measured beat of a horse's hoofs; then the strain changed to a pensive nocturne suggestive of the forest at night. A tender slumber-song followed, in which her voice took up the melody, chanting loving words in the language of Tuscany. The light, delicate thread of harmony now broadened into a full consonance of sound, the chords following each other tumultuously, as if in translating one supreme moment of leave-taking. As she was striking the closing strains of this emotional improvisation, her powerful voice trembling with a passionate addio, the sweet symphony of sounds was interrupted by a crashing discord. She sprang from the piano startled and trembling, to find that a heavy vase of flowers had fallen on the key-board from the shelf above the piano. The metal jar was uninjured, but about her feet were scattered the petals of a bunch of white roses which Graham had plucked for her that night. So rudely was her rhapsody interrupted! She closed the piano, and, after restlessly wandering through the silent house, went to her own room, where she sat looking out of her window at the moon-lit hills. She could not sleep, she was full of unrest.
The gray morning light was filtering into Barbara Deering's room when she was awakened by a light touch on the shoulder. Millicent stood before her, gray as the twilight; she held in her hand a small parchment book.
"Barbara, what books did you give Mr. Graham?"
"The Petrarch and your Dante. What is the matter, Millicent? Have n't you been in bed?"
"No, I could not sleep. Here is the little Dante; where did you find the book you mistook for it?"
Barbara sat up and rubbed her eyes confusedly.
"Why, it was not where I had last seen it. I found it somewhere, in your jewel-box, I think. I am so sorry I made a mistake; 't was just like the Dante. Does it matter much?"