Part 4 (1/2)

”Henrietta, at least you shall give us some music, and Mr. Langenau, I am sure you will be good enough to help us; I will send over to the school-room for that flute and those piles of music that I've seen upon a shelf, and you will be charitable enough to play for us.”

”I must beg you will not take that trouble.”

”Oh, Mr. Langenau, that is selfish now.”

Mrs. Hollenbeck did not press the subject then, but made herself thoroughly delightful during tea, and as we rose from the table renewed the request in a low tone to Mr. Langenau: and the result was, a little after eight o'clock he came into the parlor where we sat. A place was made for him at the table around which we were sitting, and Mrs.

Hollenbeck began the process of putting him at his ease. There was no need. The tutor was quite as much at ease as any one, and, in a little while, imperceptibly became the person to whom we were all listening.

Charlotte Benson at last gave up her book, and took her work-box instead. We were no longer moping and dull around the table. And bye and bye Henrietta, much alarmed, was sent to the piano, and her poor little music certainly sounded very meagre when Mr. Langenau touched the keys.

I think he consented to play not to appear rude, but with the firm intention of not being the instrument of our entertainment, and not being made use of out of his own accepted calling. But happily for us, he soon forgot all about us, and played on, absorbed in himself and in his music. We listened breathlessly, the others quite as much engrossed as I, because they all knew much more of music than I did. Suddenly, after playing for a long while, he started from the piano, and came back to the table. He was evidently agitated. Before the others could say a word of thanks or wonder, I cried, in a fear of the cessation of what gave me such intense pleasure,

”Oh, sing something; can't you sing?”

”Yes, I can sing,” he said, looking down at me with those dangerous eyes. ”Will it give you pleasure if I sing for you?”

He did not wait for an answer, but turned back to the piano.

He had said ”if I sing for you,” and I knew that for me he was singing.

I do not know what it was for others, but for me, it was the only true music that I had ever heard, the only music that I could have begged might never cease, but flood over all the present and the future, satisfying every sense. Other voices had roused and thrilled, this filled me. I asked no more, and could have died with that sound in my ears.

”Why, Pauline! child! what is it?” cried Mrs. Hollenbeck, as the music ceased and Mr. Langenau. again came back to the circle round the table.

Every one looked: I was choking with sobs.

”Oh, don't, I don't want you to speak to me,” I cried, putting away her hand and darting from the room. I was not ashamed of myself, even when I was alone in my room. The powerful magic lasted still, through the silence and darkness, till I was aroused by the voices of the others coming up to bed.

Mrs. Hollenbeck knocked at my door with her bedroom candle in her hand, and, as she stood talking to me, the others strayed in to join her and to satisfy their curiosity.

”You are very sensitive to music, are you not?” said Charlotte Benson, contemplatively. She had tried me on Mompssen, and the ”Seven Lamps,”

and found me wanting, and now perhaps hoped to find some other point less faulty.

”I do not know,” I said, honestly. ”I seem to have been very sensitive to-night.”

”But you are not always?” asked Henrietta Palmer. ”You do not always cry when people sing?”

”Why, no,” I said with great contempt. ”But I never heard any one sing like that before.”

”He does sing well,” said Mrs. Hollenbeck, thoughtfully.

”Immense expression and a fine voice,” added Charlotte Benson.

”He has been educated for the stage, you may be sure,” said Mary Leighton, with a little spite. ”As Miss d'Estree says, I never heard anyone sing like that, out of the chorus of an opera.”

”Well, I think,” returned Charlotte Benson, ”if there were many voices like that in ordinary choruses, one would be glad to dispense with the solos and duets.”

”Oh, you would not find his voice so wonderful, if you heard it out of a parlor. It is very well, but it would not fill a concert hall, much less an opera house. No; you may be sure he has been educated for some of those German choruses; you know they are very fine musicians.”