Phil was an inexhaustible subject to his sister, for she never tired of talking of what he did, and what he knew. She now told Miss Crawford, as a great secret, how much Phil wished to continue the drawing lessons that he had begun at an evening class in Camberwell the previous winter, and how clever he already was with his pencil.
"Why, Miss Crawford," said Millie, in a voice of profound admiration, "he actually drew me a lovely little picture of Chormouth Bay, with old John Linton the fisherman coming home with his boat full of mackerel. And all from memory!"
"You must show it me, Millie, some day. Now, if you have quite finished your tea, I will have the table cleared."
But they sat on in the pleasant garden till all the sunbeams had left it, then Miss Crawford took Millie indoors.
If the garden had appeared lovely to the child, the house seemed still more beautiful. Once at Chormouth she recollected that she had been taken over "The Hall" by her mother, and on two or three occasions she had been in the library at Chormouth Vicarage. But here it was not grand and stately like "The Hall," nor small and cheerless like the Vicarage. The rooms in Miss Crawford's house were neither too large nor too small; the carpets were soft to the eye and soft to the touch—Millie could hardly hear her own footsteps as she walked. The furniture was substantial and comfortable; the pictures bright and cheerful—ah! Wouldn't Phil have liked to see those pictures! And flowers and ferns in rich profusion were standing in every available spot, shedding their gracefulness and sweet perfume upon all.
"O! Miss Crawford," said Millie, drawing a long breath of admiration, "what a lovely house you have!"
"I am glad you think so," Miss Crawford said smiling. "Now," she said, leading the way into the prettiest room of all, "this is my drawing-room. Sit down in that low chair in the corner there, Millie, and I will play and sing to you. My father and mother are away with my brother in the country, so that we shall not be disturbing anybody."
So saying, she opened the piano, and sang in such a rich sweet voice that Millie started with surprise and pleasure. So distinctly too were the words pronounced that every syllable was heard. The first songs were light and cheerful. These were succeeded by those grand but touching lines:—
"Break, break, break,
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
"O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
"And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
"Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me."
The music and the words went straight to the little listener's heart. They took her in spirit to Chormouth—to the little cottage there, and to its beloved inmates. In spite of her efforts to prevent them the tears would come. She could just manage to keep from sobbing aloud, and that was all.