But a curious little sequel followed on the morrow. Mrs. Barrett usually tapped, not at his door, but at the wooden wall beyond which lay Oleron's bed; and then Oleron rose, put on his dressing-gown, and admitted her. He was not conscious that as he did so that morning he hummed an air; but Mrs. Barrett lingered with her hand on the door-knob and her face a little averted and smiling.
"De-ar me!" her soft falsetto rose. "But that will be a very o-ald tune,
Mr. Oleron! I will not have heard it this for-ty years!"
"What tune?" Oleron asked.
"The tune, indeed, that you was humming, sir."
Oleron had his thumb in the flap of a letter. It remained there.
"I was humming?… Sing it, Mrs. Barrett."
Mrs. Barrett prut-prutted.
"I have no voice for singing, Mr. Oleron; it was Ann Pugh was the singer of our family; but the tune will be very o-ald, and it is called 'The Beckoning Fair One.'"
"Try to sing it," said Oleron, his thumb still in the envelope; and Mrs.
Barrett, with much dimpling and confusion, hummed the air.
"They do say it was sung to a harp, Mr. Oleron, and it will be very o-ald," she concluded.