“Noise?” asked Helen, puzzled for a moment.
“Why, yes; I met old Mr. Nelson coming down the street, and he said that you were making a most dreadful racket upon the piano, and shouting, too, and that there were a dozen people standing in the street, staring!”
A sudden wild thought occurred to Helen, and she whirled about. Sure enough, she found the two windows of the room wide open; and that was too much for her gravity; she flung herself upon the sofa and gave vent to peal after peal of laughter.
“Oh, Daddy!” she gasped. “Oh, Daddy!”
Mr. Davis did not understand the joke, but he waited patiently, taking off his gloves in the meantime. “What it is, Helen?” he enquired.
“Oh, Daddy!” exclaimed the girl again, and lifted herself up and turned her laughing eyes upon him. “And now I understand why inspired people have to live in the country!”
“What was it, Helen?”
“It—it wasn't anything, Daddy, except that I was playing and singing for Arthur, and I forgot to close the windows.”
“You must remember, my love, that you live in a clergyman's house,” said Mr. Davis. “I have no objection to merriment, but it must be within bounds. Mr. Nelson said that he did not know what to think was the matter.”
Helen made a wry face at the name; the Nelsons were a family of Methodists who lived across the way. Methodists are people who take life seriously as a rule, and Helen thought the Nelsons were very queer indeed.