“This is music, Molly, and simple, too. Listen!” He played with exquisite finish a Sonatina of Mozart, one of his childhood’s lessons. “You could learn that easily. See! there’s the motif of the thing, the main tune, I mean. I’ll write it down for you and teach you.” Without giving her a chance to renew her request, he went on from one simple thing to another of the great masters, till the entrance of her mother gave him a chance to escape.
But Molly was not deceived. “He won’t stay, Ma,” she said, her lips trembling.
“What? Who?” inquired her mother sharply, with a quick glance at the girl’s face. “Here, Molly, them milk cans is to wash and your Pa will be round here in ten minutes raisin’ Cain—an’——”
“He’s goin’, Ma,” persisted Molly, her lips quivering.
“I don’t believe he’s goin’. Pa hasn’t said nothin’ to him yet. You get on with your work or you’ll ketch it. Your Pa is goin’ to talk to him today. Come! git a hustle on!” The edge on Ma’s tongue sent Molly about her work, but only served to confirm the girl in her opinion. She knew her mother. Wearily she went to the milk cans.
Ma found an opportunity for a brief but pointed word with her husband before he set off on his trip with the milk for the Fort.
“Offer him big money, Pa. Don’t be mean. It’s not him I’m thinkin’ av,” she said, helping her husband to load the milk cans.
“Now what the divil are ye afther, Ma?” inquired McConnell, gazing open-mouthed at his spouse. When the brogue came rich to his wife’s tongue he knew that things were stirring in her heart.
“Man dear, have ye no eyes at all, at all?” she asked impatiently, with a glance at her daughter, who was chaffing with Paul at the head of the team. McConnell’s eyes followed her glance.
“Saints and angels! Is that it?” he said under his breath.