"Oh, well, you may laugh," Miss Ri went on, "but it is quite true. Why, only the last time Becky was here she carried off a little mirror that had belonged to my great-grandmother."
"Why did you let her have it? Your great-grandmother was no relation of hers."
"I know that; but she talked so much, I had to let her take it to get rid of the incessant buzzing. You know what a talker Becky is."
"But you like Mrs. Becky; I've often heard you say so."
"Oh, yes, I like her well enough. She is entertaining when she is talking about other people's affairs and not mine," remarked Miss Ri with a droll smile. "That is the way it generally is, I suppose. Well, anyhow, Berk Matthews keeps my business together, and I'm sure I am satisfied to have him run in when he chooses, if only to keep me in a good humor."
"I thought you were always so, and that you never got mad with fools."
"I don't; but Becky is no fool, my dear."
They turned into the big drawing-room, a room charming enough in itself, without the addition of the fine old Chippendale chairs and tables, the carved davenport, the big inlaid piano, and the portraits representing beauties of a departed time. Linda knew them all. The beautiful girl in white, holding a rose, was Miss Ri's grandmother, for whom she was named and who was a famous belle in her day. The gentleman in red hunting-coat was a great-grandfather and his wife the lady with powdered hair and robed in blue satin. The man with the sword was another great-grandfather, and so on. One must go up a step to reach the embrasured windows which looked riverward, but at the others, which faced the lawn, hung heavy damask curtains. Linda had always liked the smaller windows, and when she was a little child had preferred to play on the platform before them to going anywhere else. There was such a sense of security in being thus raised above the floor. She liked, too, the little writing-room and the tiny boudoir which led from the larger room, though these were closed, except in summer, as so large a house was hard to heat comfortably.
A freshly-burning fire in the fireplace sent glancing lights over the tall candlesticks and sought out the brightest spots on the old picture-frames. It picked out the brass beading on the yellow-keyed piano, and flickered across Chinese curios on the spindle-legged tables. Miss Ri's grandfather had been an admiral in the navy and many were the treasures which were tucked away here, out of sight there, or more happily, brought forth to take the place of some more modern gift which had come to grief in the hands of careless servants.
"It is a dear old room," said Linda, sitting down at the piano and touching softly the yellowed keys, which gave forth a tinkling response.
"I ought to have a new piano," said Miss Ri, "and now you have come, it will be an excuse to get one. I'll see what I can do next time I go to town. I remember that you have a nice voice."
"Nothing to boast of."
"Not very powerful, perhaps, but sweet and true. I wish you'd sing for me, Verlinda, if you are not too tired."
"I will, if you will first play for me some of those things I used to love when I was a child. You would play till I grew drowsy, and then you would carry me off to bed."
"Oh, my dear, I don't play nowadays, and on that old tinkling piano."
"But it is just because it is the old piano that I want the old tunes."
"Then pick out what you like, and I will try."
Linda turned over a pile of music to find such obsolete titles as "Twilight Dews," "Departed Days," "Showers of Pearl," and the like. She selected one and set it on the rack. "Here is one I used to like the best," she said. "It suggested all sorts of things to my childish mind; deep woods, fairy calls, growling giants; I don't know what all."
"'Departed Days.' Very fitly named, isn't it? for it is at least fifteen years ago, and it was an old thing then. Well, I will try; but you mustn't criticise when I stumble." She sat down to the piano, a stout, fresh-colored, grey-haired woman with a large mouth, whose sweet expression betokened the kindly nature better than did the humorous twinkling eyes. She played with little style, but sympathetically, though the thin tinkling notes might have jarred upon the ears of one who had no tender associations with the commonplace melody. To Linda it was a voice from out of her long-ago, and she listened with a wistful smile till suddenly the door opened and the music ended with a false chord. Miss Ri shut the piano with a bang, and turned to greet the young man who entered.
CHAPTER V
THE ALARM
"Have I interrupted a musicale?" asked Berkley jauntily.
"You are just in time to hear Verlinda sing," responded Miss Ri with ready tact and in order to cover her own confusion.
"Ah, that's good," cried he, though "Oh, Miss Ri," came in protest from Linda.
"Didn't you promise to sing for me, if I played for you?" queried Miss Ri.
"Yes, – but – only for you."
"Now, Miss Linda," Berkley expostulated, "haven't I known you as long as Miss Ri has?"
"Not quite," Linda answered.
"But does the matter of a few months or even years, when you were yet in a state of infantile bewilderment, make any difference?"
"It makes all the difference," Linda was positive.
"Oh, come, come," spoke up Miss Ri, "that is all nonsense. You don't make any bones of singing in the church choir, Verlinda."
"Oh, but then I have the support of other voices."
"Well, you can have the support of Berk's voice; I am sure it is big enough."
"Oh, but I don't sing anything but college songs," the young man declared.
"Such a very modest pair," laughed Miss Ri.
"Well, who was blushing like a sixteen-older when I came in? Tell me that," said Berkley triumphantly. And Miss Ri was perforce to acknowledge that she was as bad as the rest, but the controversy was finally ended by Linda's consenting to sing one song if Berkley would do the same. She chose a quaint old English ballad as being in keeping with the clinking piano, and then Berkley sang a rollicking college song to a monotonous accompaniment which, however, was nearly drowned by his big baritone.
By the time this was ended the ice was broken and they warmed up to the occasion. They dragged forth some of Miss Ri's old music-books to find such sentimental songs of a former day as pleased their fancy. Over some of these they made merry; over others they paused. "My mother used to sing that," Berkley would say. "So did my mother," Linda would answer, and then would follow: "She Wore a Wreath of Roses," "Flow Gently, Sweet Afton," "Cast That Shadow from Thy Brow," or some other forgotten ballad.
"Oh, here is 'The Knight of the Raven Black Plume,'" cried Linda, as she turned the discolored pages of one of the old books. "How I used to love that; it is so romantic. Listen," and she began, "A lady looked forth from her lattice."
So they went from one thing to another till Berkley, looking at his watch exclaimed, "I'm keeping you all up, and Miss Ri, we haven't seen to those papers. That music is a treasure-trove, Miss Linda. We must get at the other books sometime, but we'll take some Friday night when you can sleep late the next morning."
Linda's face shadowed. "Why remind me of such things? I had nearly forgotten that there were matters like school-rooms and abandoned little wretches of boys."
"Don't be so hard on the little chaps. I was one once, as I reminded you, and I have some sympathy with them caged up in a school-room. Just get the point of contact and you will be all right."
"Ah, but there's the rub," returned Linda ruefully. "I am not used to boys, and any sort of contact, pointed or otherwise, doesn't appeal to me."
"You must just bully them into good behavior," put in Miss Ri. "Here, Berk, you be the little boy and I'll be the school-marm. Verlinda needs an object lesson." Then followed a scene so funny that Linda laughed till she cried.
"Where are those papers?" inquired Miss Ri suddenly putting an end to the nonsense. "Bring them into the sitting-room, Berk, and we will get them done