"I think there is, sir," he replied, looking over his letters under the gas-lamp. "'Messrs. Brightman and Strange;' there it is, sir."
I opened it by the same light. It was the expected letter, and required an immediate answer. So I returned, and letting myself in with my latch-key, went into the front office to write it.
Leah had not heard me come in. She was upstairs, deep in one of the two favourite ballads which now appeared to comprise all her collection. During office hours Leah was quiet as a mute; but in the evening she would generally croon over one of these old songs in an undertone, if she thought that I was out and she had the house to herself. As she was thinking now, for she sang out in full key, but in a doleful, monotonous sort of chant. Her voice was still very sweet, but had lost much of the power of its earlier days. One of these two songs was a Scotch fragment, beginning "Woe's me, for my heart is breaking;" the other was "Barbara Allen." Fragmentary also, apparently; for as Leah sang it there appeared to be neither beginning nor ending to it.
"And as she wandered up and down,
She heard the bells a-ringing,
And as they rang they seemed to say,
'Hard-hearted Barbara Allen.'
"She turned her body round and round,
She saw his corpse a-coming;
'Oh, put him down by this blade's side,
That I may gaze upon him!'
"The more she looked, the more she laughed,
The further she went from him;
Her friends they all cried out, 'For shame,
Hard-hearted Barbara Allen!'"
Whether this is the correct version of the ballad or not, I do not know; it was Leah's version. Many and many a time had I heard it; and I was hearing it again this evening, when there came a quiet ring at the door bell. My door was pushed to but not closed, and Leah came bustling down. Barbara Allen was going on still, but in a more subdued voice.
"Do Mr. Strange live here?" was asked, when the door was opened.
"Yes, he does," responded Leah. "He is out."
"Oh, I don't want him, ma'am. I only wanted to know if he lived here. What sort of a man is he?"