'Need I not?' said the doctor smiling. 'Agreed!I like this much better. But one night when you were singing to Kitty Fisher, in her room, she had secretly posted an ambush underneath the window. It would be hard to forget those songs, or to cease wishing to hear them again.'
'Kitty Fisher!'
'You will certainly do for Prim what you would do for Kitty
Fisher,' remarked Rollo.
'I suspect I did it for myself then,' said Hazel; and "for herself' was the way she liked best to sing. But if he wished it So without more ado the song came. Not one of her gay little carols this time, but a wild Border lament; inimitably sweet, tender, and true. As effortless in the giving, as forgetful of auditors, as if she had been a veritable bird among the branches; for Wych Hazel always lost herself in her music.
Then more was called for, with a general soft shout. And then, by and by, as Wych Hazel sang, a soft rich accompaniment began to chime in with her notes. Those two had never sung together before; doubtless that was forgotten by neither; and it is not too much to say that the one voice came caressingly attending upon the other; playing around her notes with delicious skill, accompanying, supporting, contrasting, with a harmony as gracious as it was wilful; till at the close of a somewhat longer piece than usual there was a universal burst of applause. Small audiences are not generally wrought up to such a pitch; and when they had done they all sat and laughed at each other.
'Ah!' said Dr. Arthur, 'I asked for a noise, and after all had to make it myself!'
They had got intoxicated with melody. They went on singing, of course. Various and diverse things, but for the most part of the deeper and thoughtful styles of music; sometimes together, sometimes alone. At last Gyda asked for a hymn. Rollo looked at Wych Hazel. The two spots of colour which had been burning in her cheeks, changed suddenly to a grave flush.
'That is for you,' she said softly.
He waited a moment, and then sang,
"Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott"