He stopped to stir up his niece's tea for the second time, and to draw her attention to it by tapping with the spoon on the edge of the cup.
"Three reasons," he resumed. "First, you are my sister's child—some of her flesh and blood, and some of mine, therefore, also. Second, my sister, my brother, and lastly me myself, we owe to your good English father—all. A little word that means much, and may be said again and again—all. Your father's friends cry, Fie! Agatha Buschmann is poor! Agatha Buschmann is foreign! But your father loves the poor German girl, and he marries her in spite of their Fie, Fie. Your father's friends cry Fie! again; Agatha Buschmann has a musician brother, who gabbles to us about Mozart, and who can not make to his porridge salt. Your father says, Good! I like his gabble; I like his playing; I shall get him people to teach; and while I have pinches of salt in my kitchen, he to his porridge shall have pinches of salt too. Your father's friends cry Fie! for the third time. Agatha Buschmann has another brother, a little Stupid-Head, who to the other's gabble can only listen and say Amen. Send him trotting; for the love of Heaven, shut up all the doors and send Stupid-Head trotting, at least. Your father says, No! Stupid-Head has his wits in his hands; he can cut and carve and polish; help him a little at the starting, and after he shall help himself. They are all gone now but me! Your father, your mother, and Uncle Max—they are all gone. Stupid-Head alone remains to remember and to be grateful—to take Sarah's sorrow for his sorrow, and Sarah's joy for his joy."
He stopped again to blow a speck of dust off the musical box. His niece endeavored to speak, but he held up his hand, and shook his forefinger at her warningly.
"No," he said. "It is yet my business to talk, and your business to drink tea. Have I not my third reason still? Ah! you look away from me; you know my third reason before I say a word. When I, in my turn, marry, and my wife dies, and leaves me alone with little Joseph, and when the boy falls sick, who comes then, so quiet, so pretty, so neat, with the bright young eyes, and the hands so tender and light? Who helps me with little Joseph by night and by day? Who makes a pillow for him on her arm when his head is weary? Who holds this box patiently at his ear?—yes! this box, that the hand of Mozart has touched—who holds it closer, closer always, when little Joseph's sense grows dull, and he moans for the friendly music that he has known from a baby, the friendly music that he can now so hardly, hardly hear? Who kneels down by Uncle Joseph when his heart is breaking, and says, 'Oh, hush! hush! The boy is gone where the better music plays, where the sickness shall never waste or the sorrow touch him more?' Who? Ah, Sarah! you can not forget those days; you can not forget the Long Ago! When the trouble is bitter, and the burden is heavy, it is cruelty to Uncle Joseph to keep away; it is kindness to him to come here."
The recollections that the old man had called up found their way tenderly to Sarah's heart. She could not answer him; she could only hold out her hand. Uncle Joseph bent down, with a quaint, affectionate gallantry, and kissed it; then stepped back again to his place by the musical box. "Come!" he said, patting it cheerfully, "we will say no more for a while. Mozart's box, Max's box, little Joseph's box, you shall talk to us again!"
Having put the tiny machinery in motion, he sat down by the table, and remained silent until the air had been played over twice. Then observing that his niece seemed calmer, he spoke to her once more.
"You are in trouble, Sarah," he said, quietly. "You tell me that, and I see it is true in your face. Are you grieving for your husband?"
"I grieve that I ever met him," she answered. "I grieve that I ever married him. Now that he is dead, I can not grieve—I can only forgive him."
"Forgive him? How you look, Sarah, when you say that! Tell me—"
"Uncle Joseph! I have told you that my husband is dead, and that I have forgiven him."