“Oh, I do not know anything to play,” she weakly pleaded, “for I am no musician.” Nathalie spoke the truth, for she not only had no special talent for music, but the little accomplishment that she had acquired in that line had been sadly neglected since she had taken up housework.
But as the invalid’s plea was insistent, and the girl did not want to be disagreeable, she again swept her hands over the keyboard, this time unconsciously falling into one of Chopin’s waltzes, something that she supposed she had forgotten. From this she wandered into a few rag-time airs, and then came snatches of old-time melodies, until finally she was playing a well-known reverie by a noted composer.
But suddenly realizing that she had heard nothing from the next room, and fearing that she had wearied Miss Whipple, she hastily arose and hurried to her side, to find her lying back in her chair with a strange restful expression on her face, but with closed eye lids, through which tears were slowly trickling.
“Oh, Miss Whipple, I should not have played so long,” exclaimed the girl remorsefully. “Perhaps I have made you feel sad.”
“No, no, my child! Your playing has brightened me up.” The invalid sat up quickly, as she shamefacedly wiped away the stray tears. “Indeed, my dear, I pay you a compliment when I cry, for if the music did not go right to my heart the tears would not have come. No, I would never regret being an old shut-in if I could hear music once in a while. But that was a lovely little thing you played last; it is one of my favorites.”
“Oh, I must try to get Janet to come down and play for you,” cried Nathalie with a relieved sigh, “for she is a real musician, and plays for us every evening as we sit on the veranda in the moonlight. But it is getting late and I must go, for I have supper to get. When my boys come, perhaps I shall have more time, for, you know, I am going to put them through their paces and teach them to be helpful.”
After a hasty good-by, Nathalie was hurrying across the road, while waving her hand to the sweet, patient face smiling at her from the window. Some twenty minutes later she arrived at Seven Pillars, her eyes happily aglow, as she told her mother of the readings to be, to help lighten the burdens of her new friend, the shut-in.
Several days later Nathalie, with her mother, walked slowly down the garden-path, with its border of oldtime hollyhocks and peonies and white stones, to the gate-posts. A step or two, and they stood before the door of the little red house, as the girl, with pleased eyes, cried, “Well, mother, she’s in, for I saw her sitting at the window as we came up the path, so we can get this ordeal over.”
But unfortunately she reckoned without her host, for although they knocked and knocked, Nathalie even pounding on the door with her parasol-handle, for she had planned to take a walk after the call, no one came to the door. After a time she peered at the window, but some one had drawn the shades down so that nothing was to be seen.
“Mother, she is so angry she just won’t let us in,” cried the young caller with flushed cheeks. “Oh, I think she must be a very disagreeable old lady, and I do not think there is any use in trying to be nice to her.”