“Why not, dear? You practise enough, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think so. He says I have the technique and the good wrist, but I play like a parrot, and can only amuse. He told me to take up the concertina.”
Margaret smiled. “That is his way. Just go on, dear, and do the very best you can.”
“But I don’t want to disappoint you, mother—I want to be an artist.”
“Lynn, dear, you will never disappoint me. You have been a comfort to me since the day you were born. What should I have done without you in all these years that I have been alone!”
She drew his tall head down and kissed him, but Lynn, boy-like, evaded the sentiment and turned it into a joke. “That’s very Irish, mother—‘what would you have done without me in all the time you’ve been alone?’ How is the invalid?”
“The fever is high,” sighed Margaret, “and Doctor Brinkerhoff looks very grave.”
“I hope she isn’t going to die,” said Lynn, conventionally. “Can I do anything?”
“No, nothing but wait. Sometimes I think that waiting is the very hardest thing in the world.”