"My thimble generally rolls off the veranda and buries itself among pebbles. I think it possesses an imp!" laughed one.
"Mine goes always into the red coals of the hibachi," giggled another.
"That is precisely the conduct of my worthless article," added a third. "The water-kettle has to be taken aside, and grandmother scowls. Then we all dig for the thimble with the copper fire-sticks. When we find it, it is quite black, and—Ma-a-a!—so hot, that it must be dropped at once into cold water, where it hisses like the head of a small serpent."
"Now what shall I sing for such a crowd as this?" mused Mrs. Wyndham, as she shuffled the loose leaves of her music. Her words had the sound of inner meditation.
"What would the Japanese like best?" asked Gwendolen, in a low tone.
"Oh, my dear! I wasn't thinking of them!" protested the other. "They are incapable of appreciating any real music. I was thinking of our foreign friends."
"Yuki Haganè is a Japanese. She loves the best music. Brahms is almost a passion with her. She says that he sounds like the wind in pine-trees, high above a great battle."
"Oh, Brahms!" said the other. "I never sing Brahms. He is too harsh and unpoetic. These bellowing contraltos affect him. As for me, I must have something light, poetic, full of melody."
"Here is our American McDowell," murmured Gwendolen, and bent her face that its expression might not be seen. "Being patriotic by profession I plead for McDowell."
"You do not consider him,—over their heads?" asked the Englishwoman, dubiously.