It was about four in the afternoon when a young girl came into the
salon of the little hotel at C—- in Switzerland, and drew her chair
up to the fire.

“You are soaked through,” said an elderly lady, who was herself trying
to get roasted. “You ought to lose no time in changing your clothes.”

“I have not anything to change,” said the young girl, laughing. “Oh, I
shall soon be dry!”

“Have you lost all your luggage?” asked the lady, sympathetically.

“No,” said the young girl; “I had none to lose.” And she smiled a
little mischievously, as though she knew by instinct that her
companion’s sympathy would at once degenerate into suspicion!

“I don’t mean to say that I have not a knapsack,” she added,
considerately. “I have walked a long distance–in fact, from Z—-.”

“And where did you leave your companions?” asked the lady, with a
touch of forgiveness in her voice.

“I am without companions, just as I am without luggage,” laughed the
girl.

And then she opened the piano, and struck a few notes. There was
something caressing in the way in which she touched the keys; whoever
she was, she knew how to make sweet music; sad music, too, full of
that undefinable longing, like the holding out of one’s arms to one’s
friends in the hopeless distance.

The lady bending over the fire looked up at the little girl, and
forgot that she had brought neither friends nor luggage with her. She
hesitated for one moment, and then she took the childish face between
her hands and kissed it.

“Thank you, dear, for your music,” she said, gently.

“The piano is terribly out of tune,” said the little girl, suddenly;
and she ran out of the room, and came back carrying her knapsack.

“What are you going to do?” asked her companion.

“I am going to tune the piano,” the little girl said; and she took a
tuning-hammer out of her knapsack, and began her work in real earnest.
She evidently knew what she was about, and pegged away at the notes as
though her whole life depended upon the result.

The lady by the fire was lost in amazement. Who could she be? Without
luggage and without friends, and with a tuning-hammer!

Meanwhile one of the gentlemen had strolled into the salon; but
hearing the sound of tuning, and being in secret possession of nerves,
he fled, saying, “The tuner, by Jove!”

A few minutes afterward Miss Blake, whose nerves were no secret
possession, hastened into the salon, and, in her usual imperious
fashion, demanded instant silence.

“I have just done,” said the little girl. “The piano was so terribly
out of tune, I could not resist the temptation.”

Miss Blake, who never listened to what any one said, took it for
granted that the little girl was the tuner for whom M. le Proprietaire
had promised to send; and having bestowed on her a condescending nod,
passed out into the garden, where she told some of the visitors that
the piano had been tuned at last, and that the tuner was a young woman
of rather eccentric appearance.

“Really, it is quite abominable how women thrust themselves into every
profession,” she remarked, in her masculine voice. “It is so
unfeminine, so unseemly.”

There was nothing of the feminine about Miss Blake; her horse-cloth
dress, her waistcoat and high collar, and her billycock hat were of
the masculine genus; even her nerves could not be called feminine,
since we learn from two or three doctors (taken off their guard) that
nerves are neither feminine nor masculine, but common.

“I should like to see this tuner,” said one of the tennis-players,
leaning against a tree.

“Here she comes,” said Miss Blake, as the little girl was seen
sauntering into the garden.

The men put up their eye-glasses, and saw a little lady with a
childish face and soft brown hair, of strictly feminine appearance and
bearing. The goat came toward her and began nibbling at her frock. She
seemed to understand the manner of goats, and played with him to his
heart’s content. One of the tennis players, Oswald Everard by name,
strolled down to the bank where she was having her frolic.

“Good-afternoon,” he said, raising his cap. “I hope the goat is not
worrying you. Poor little fellow! this is his last day of play. He is
to be killed to-morrow for table d’hote.”

“What a shame!” she said. “Fancy to be killed, and then grumbled at!”

“That is precisely what we do here,” he said, laughing. “We grumble at
everything we eat. And I own to being one of the grumpiest; though the
lady in the horse-cloth dress yonder follows close upon my heels.”

“She was the lady who was annoyed at me because I tuned the piano,”
the little girl said. “Still, it had to be done. It was plainly my
duty. I seemed to have come for that purpose.”

“It has been confoundedly annoying having it out of tune,” he said.
“I’ve had to give up singing altogether. But what a strange profession
you have chosen! Very unusual, isn’t it?”

“Why, surely not,” she answered, amused. “It seems to me that every
other woman has taken to it. The wonder to me is that any one ever
scores a success. Nowadays, however, no one could amass a huge fortune
out of it.”

“No one, indeed!” replied Oswald Everard, laughing. “What on earth
made you take to it?”

“It took to me,” she said simply. “It wrapped me round with
enthusiasm. I could think of nothing else. I vowed that I would rise
to the top of my profession. I worked day and night. But it means
incessant toil for years if one wants to make any headway.”

“Good gracious! I thought it was merely a matter of a few months,” he
said, smiling at the little girl.

“A few months!” she repeated, scornfully. “You are speaking the
language of an amateur. No; one has to work faithfully year after
year; to grasp the possibilities, and pass on to greater
possibilities. You imagine what it must feel like to touch the notes,
and know that you are keeping the listeners spellbound; that you are
taking them into a fairy-land of sound, where petty personality is
lost in vague longing and regret.”

“I confess I had not thought of it in that way,” he said, humbly. “I
have only regarded it as a necessary every-day evil; and to be quite
honest with you, I fail to see now how it can inspire enthusiasm. I
wish I could see,” he added, looking up at the engaging little figure
before him.

“Never mind,” she said, laughing at his distress; “I forgive you. And,
after all, you are not the only person who looks upon it as a
necessary evil. My poor old guardian abominated it. He made many
sacrifices to come and listen to me. He knew I liked to see his kind
old face, and that the presence of a real friend inspired me with
confidence.”

“I should not have thought it was nervous work,” he said.

“Try it and see,” she answered. “But surely you spoke of singing. Are
you not nervous when you sing?”

“Sometimes,” he replied, rather stiffly. “But that is slightly
different.” (He was very proud of his singing, and made a great fuss
about it.) “Your profession, as I remarked before, is an unavoidable
nuisance. When I think what I have suffered from the gentlemen of your
profession, I only wonder that I have any brains left. But I am
uncourteous.”

“No, no,” she said; “let me hear about your sufferings.”

“Whenever I have specially wanted to be quiet,” he said–and then he
glanced at her childish little face, and he hesitated. “It seems so
rude of me,” he added. He was the soul of courtesy, although he was an
amateur tenor singer.

“Please tell me,” the little girl said, in her winning way.

“Well,” he said, gathering himself together, “it is the one subject on
which I can be eloquent. Ever since I can remember, I have been
worried and tortured by those rascals. I have tried in every way to
escape from them, but there is no hope for me. Yes; I believe that all
the tuners in the universe are in league against me, and have marked
me out for their special prey.”

“All the what?” asked the little girl, with a jerk in her voice.

“All the tuners, of course,” he replied, rather snappishly. “I know
that we cannot do without them; but good heavens! they have no tact,
no consideration, no mercy. Whenever I’ve wanted to write or read
quietly, that fatal knock has come at the door, and I’ve known by
instinct that all chance of peace was over. Whenever I’ve been giving
a luncheon party, the tuner has arrived, with his abominable black
bag, and his abominable card which has to be signed at once. On one
occasion I was just proposing to a girl in her father’s library when
the tuner struck up in the drawing-room. I left off suddenly, and fled
from the house. But there is no escape from these fiends; I believe
they are swarming about in the air like so many bacteria. And how, in
the name of goodness, you should deliberately choose to be one of
them, and should be so enthusiastic over your work, puzzles me beyond
all words. Don’t say that you carry a black bag, and present cards
which have to be filled up at the most inconvenient time; don’t–”

He stopped suddenly, for the little girl was convulsed with laughter.
She laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks, and then she dried
her eyes and laughed again.

“Excuse me,” she said; “I can’t help myself; it’s so funny.”

“It may be funny to you,” he said, laughing in spite of himself; “but
it is not funny to me.”

“Of course it isn’t,” she replied, making a desperate effort to be
serious. “Well, tell me something more about these tuners.”

“Not another word,” he said, gallantly. “I am ashamed of myself as it
is. Come to the end of the garden, and let me show you the view down
into the valley.”

She had conquered her fit of merriment, but her face wore a settled
look of mischief, and she was evidently the possessor of some secret
joke. She seemed in capital health and spirits, and had so much to say
that was bright and interesting that Oswald Everard found himself
becoming reconciled to the whole race of tuners. He was amazed to
learn that she had walked all the way from Z—-, and quite alone,
too.

“Oh, I don’t think anything of that,” she said; “I had a splendid
time, and I caught four rare butterflies. I would not have missed
those for anything. As for the going about by myself, that is a second
nature. Besides, I do not belong to any one. That has its advantages,
and I suppose its disadvantages; but at present I have only discovered
the advantages. The disadvantages will discover themselves!”

“I believe you are what the novels call an advanced young woman,” he
said. “Perhaps you give lectures on woman’s suffrage, or something of
that sort?”

“I have very often mounted the platform,” she answered. “In fact, I am
never so happy as when addressing an immense audience. A most
unfeminine thing to do, isn’t it? What would the lady yonder in the
horse-cloth dress and billycock hat say? Don’t you think you ought to
go and help her drive away the goat? She looks so frightened. She
interests me deeply. I wonder whether she has written an essay on the
feminine in woman. I should like to read it; it would do me so much
good.”

“You are at least a true woman,” he said, laughing, “for I see you can
be spiteful. The tuning has not driven that away.”

“Ah, I had forgotten about the tuning,” she answered, brightly; “but
now you remind me, I have been seized with a great idea.”

“Won’t you tell it to me?” he asked.

“No,” she answered; “I keep my great ideas for myself, and work them
out in secret. And this one is particularly amusing. What fun I shall
have!”

“But why keep the fun to yourself?” he said. “We all want to be amused
here; we all want to be stirred up; a little fun would be a charity.”

“Very well, since you wish it, you shall be stirred up,” she answered;
“but you must give me time to work out my great idea. I do not hurry
about things, not even about my professional duties; for I have a
strong feeling that it is vulgar to be always amassing riches! As I
have neither a husband nor a brother to support, I have chosen less
wealth, and more leisure to enjoy all the loveliness of life! So you
see I take my time about everything. And to-morrow I shall catch
butterflies at my leisure, and lie among the dear old pines, and work
at my great idea.”

“I shall catch butterflies,” said her companion; “and I too shall lie
among the dear old pines.”

“Just as you please,” she said; and at that moment the table d’hote
bell rang.

The little girl hastened to the bureau, and spoke rapidly in German to
the cashier.

“Ach, Fraulein!” he said. “You are not really serious?”

“Yes, I am,” she said. “I don’t want them to know my name. It will
only worry me. Say I am the young lady who tuned the piano.”

She had scarcely given these directions and mounted to her room when
Oswald Everard, who was much interested in his mysterious companion,
came to the bureau, and asked for the name of the little lady.

“Es ist das Fraulein welches das Piano gestimmt hat,” answered the
man, returning with unusual quickness to his account-book.

No one spoke to the little girl at table d’hote, but for all that
she enjoyed her dinner, and gave her serious attention to all the
courses. Being thus solidly occupied, she had not much leisure to
bestow on the conversation of the other guests. Nor was it specially
original; it treated of the short-comings of the chef, the
tastelessness of the soup, the toughness of the beef, and all the many
failings which go to complete a mountain hotel dinner. But suddenly,
so it seemed to the little girl, this time-honoured talk passed into
another phase; she heard the word “music” mentioned, and she became at
once interested to learn what these people had to say on a subject
which was dearer to her than any other.

“For my own part,” said a stern-looking old man, “I have no words to
describe what a gracious comfort music has been to me all my life. It
is the noblest language which man may understand and speak. And I
sometimes think that those who know it, or know something of it, are
able at rare moments to find an answer to life’s perplexing problems.”

The little girl looked up from her plate. Robert Browning’s words rose
to her lips, but she did not give them utterance:

  God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;
  The rest may reason, and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.

“I have lived through a long life,” said another elderly man, “and
have therefore had my share of trouble; but the grief of being obliged
to give up music was the grief which held me longest, or which perhaps
has never left me. I still crave for the gracious pleasure of touching
once more the strings of the violoncello, and hearing the dear, tender
voice singing and throbbing, and answering even to such poor skill as
mine. I still yearn to take my part in concerted music, and be one of
those privileged to play Beethoven’s string-quartettes. But that will
have to be in another incarnation, I think.”

He glanced at his shrunken arm, and then, as though ashamed of this
allusion to his own personal infirmity, he added hastily:

“But when the first pang of such a pain is over, there remains the
comfort of being a listener. At first one does not think it is a
comfort; but as time goes on there is no resisting its magic
influence. And Lowell said rightly that ‘one of God’s great charities
is music.’ “

“I did not know you were musical, Mr. Keith,” said an English lady.
“You have never before spoken of music.”

“Perhaps not, madam,” he answered. “One does not often speak of what
one cares for most of all. But when I am in London I rarely miss
hearing our best players.”

At this point others joined in, and the various merits of eminent
pianists were warmly discussed.

“What a wonderful name that little English lady has made for herself!”
said the major, who was considered an authority on all subjects. I
would go anywhere to hear Miss Thyra Flowerdew. We all ought to be
very proud of her. She has taken even the German musical world by
storm, and they say her recitals at Paris have been brilliantly
successful. I myself have heard her at New York, Leipsic, London,
Berlin, and even Chicago.”

The little girl stirred uneasily in her chair.

“I don’t think Miss Flowerdew has ever been to Chicago,” she said.

There was a dead silence. The admirer of Miss Thyra Flowerdew looked
much annoyed, and twiddled his watch-chain. He had meant to say
“Philadelphia,” but he did not think it necessary to own to his
mistake.

“What impertinence!” said one of the ladies to Miss Blake. “What can
she know about it? Is she not the young person who tuned the piano?”

“Perhaps she tunes Miss Thyra Flowerdew’s piano!” suggested Miss
Blake, in a loud whisper.

“You are right, madam,” said the little girl, quietly. “I have often
tuned Miss Flowerdew’s piano.”

There was another embarrassing silence; and then a lovely old lady,
whom every one reverenced, came to the rescue.

“I think her playing is simply superb,” she said. “Nothing that I ever
hear satisfies me so entirely. She has all the tenderness of an
angel’s touch.”

“Listening to her,” said the major, who had now recovered from his
annoyance at being interrupted, “one becomes unconscious of her
presence, for she is the music itself. And that is rare. It is but
seldom nowadays that we are allowed to forget the personality of the
player. And yet her personality is an unusual one; having once seen
her, it would not be easy to forget her. I should recognise her
anywhere.”

As he spoke, he glanced at the little tuner, and could not help
admiring her dignified composure under circumstances which might have
been distressing to any one; and when she rose with the others he
followed her, and said stiffly:

“I regret that I was the indirect cause of putting you in an awkward
position.”

“It is really of no consequence,” she said, brightly. “If you think I
was impertinent, I ask your forgiveness. I did not mean to be
officious. The words were spoken before I was aware of them.”

She passed into the salon, where she found a quiet corner for herself,
and read some of the newspapers. No one took the slightest notice of
her; not a word was spoken to her; but when she relieved the company
of her presence her impertinence was commented on.

“I am sorry that she heard what I said,” remarked Miss Blake; “but she
did not seem to mind. These young women who go out into the world lose
the edge of their sensitiveness and femininity. I have always observed
that.”

“How much they are spared then!” answered some one.

Meanwhile the little girl slept soundly. She had merry dreams, and
finally woke up laughing. She hurried over her breakfast, and then
stood ready to go for a butterfly hunt. She looked thoroughly happy,
and evidently had found, and was holding tightly, the key to life’s
enjoyment.

Oswald Everard was waiting on the balcony, and he reminded her that he
intended to go with her.

“Come along then,” she answered; “we must not lose a moment.”

They caught butterflies; they picked flowers; they ran; they lingered
by the wayside; they sang; they climbed, and he marvelled at her easy
speed. Nothing seemed to tire her, and everything seemed to delight
her–the flowers, the birds, the clouds, the grasses, and the
fragrance of the pine woods.

“Is it not good to live?” she cried. “Is it not splendid to take in
the scented air? Draw in as many long breaths as you can. Isn’t it
good? Don’t you feel now as though you were ready to move mountains? I
do. What a dear old nurse Nature is! How she pets us, and gives us the
best of her treasures!”

Her happiness invaded Oswald Everard’s soul, and he felt like a
school-boy once more, rejoicing in a fine day and his liberty, with
nothing to spoil the freshness of the air, and nothing to threaten the
freedom of the moment.

“Is it not good to live?” he cried. “Yes, indeed it is, if we know how
to enjoy.”

They had come upon some haymakers, and the little girl hastened up to
help them, laughing and talking to the women, and helping them to pile
up the hay on the shoulders of a broad-backed man, who then conveyed
his burden to a pear-shaped stack. Oswald Everard watched his
companion for a moment, and then, quite forgetting his dignity as an
amateur tenor singer, he too lent his aid, and did not leave off until
his companion sank exhausted on the ground.

“Oh,” she laughed, “what delightful work for a very short time! Come
along; let us go into that brown chatlet yonder and ask for some milk.
I am simply parched with thirst. Thank you, but I prefer to carry my
own flowers.”

“What an independent little lady you are!” he said.

“It is quite necessary in our profession, I can assure you,” she said,
with a tone of mischief in her voice. “That reminds me that my
profession is evidently not looked upon with any favour by the
visitors at the hotel. I am heartbroken to think that I have not won
the esteem of that lady in the billycock hat. What will she say to you
for coming out with me? And what will she say of me for allowing you
to come? I wonder whether she will say, ‘How unfeminine!’ I wish I
could hear her!”

“I don’t suppose you care,” he said. “You seem to be a wild little
bird.”

“I don’t care what a person of that description says,” replied his
companion.

“What on earth made you contradict the major at dinner last night?” he
asked. “I was not at the table, but some one told me of the incident;
and I felt very sorry about it. What could you know of Miss Thyra
Flowerdew?”

“Well, considering that she is in my profession, of course I know
something about her,” said the little girl.

“Confound it all!” he said, rather rudely. “Surely there is some
difference between the bellows-blower and the organist.”

“Absolutely none,” she answered; “merely a variation of the original
theme!”

As she spoke she knocked at the door of the chalet, and asked the old
dame to give them some milk. They sat in the Stube, and the little
girl looked about, and admired the spinning-wheel and the quaint
chairs and the queer old jugs and the pictures on the walls.

“Ah, but you shall see the other room,” the old peasant woman said;
and she led them into a small apartment which was evidently intended
for a study. It bore evidences of unusual taste and care, and one
could see that some loving hand had been trying to make it a real
sanctum of refinement. There was even a small piano. A carved book-
rack was fastened to the wall.

The old dame did not speak at first; she gave her guests time to
recover from the astonishment which she felt they must be
experiencing; then she pointed proudly to the piano.

“I bought that for my daughters,” she said, with a strange mixture of
sadness and triumph. “I wanted to keep them at home with me, and I
saved and saved, and got enough money to buy the piano. They had
always wanted to have one, and I thought they would then stay with me.
They liked music and books, and I knew they would be glad to have a
room of their own where they might read and play and study; and so I
gave them this corner.”

“Well, mother,” asked the little girl, “and where are they this
afternoon?”

“Ah,” she answered sadly, “they did not care to stay; but it was
natural enough, and I was foolish to grieve. Besides, they come to see
me.”

“And then they play to you?” asked the little girl, gently.

“They say the piano is out of tune,” the old dame said. “I don’t know.
Perhaps you can tell.”

The little girl sat down to the piano, and struck a few chords.

“Yes,” she said; “it is badly out of tune. Give me the tuning-hammer.
I am sorry,” she added, smiling at Oswald Everard, “but I cannot
neglect my duty. Don’t wait for me.”

“I will wait for you,” he said, sullenly; and he went into the balcony
and smoked his pipe, and tried to possess his soul in patience.

When she had faithfully done her work she played a few simple
melodies, such as she knew the old woman would love and understand;
and she turned away when she saw that the listener’s eyes were moist.

“Play once again,” the old woman whispered. “I am dreaming of
beautiful things.”

So the little tuner touched the keys again with all the tenderness of
an angel.

“Tell your daughters,” she said, as she rose to say good-bye, “that
the piano is now in good tune. Then they will play to you the next
time they come.”

“I shall always remember you, mademoiselle,” the old woman said; and,
almost unconsciously, she took the childish face and kissed it.

Oswald Everard was waiting in the hay-field for his companion; and
when she apologised to him for this little professional intermezzo, as
she called it, he recovered from his sulkiness and readjusted his
nerves, which the noise of the tuning had somewhat disturbed.

“It was very good of you to tune the old dame’s piano,” he said,
looking at her with renewed interest.

“Some one had to do it, of course,” she answered, brightly, “and I am
glad the chance fell to me. What a comfort it is to think that the
next time those daughters come to see her they will play to her and
make her very happy! Poor old dear!”

“You puzzle me greatly,” he said. “I cannot for the life of me think
what made you choose your calling. You must have many gifts; any one
who talks with you must see that at once. And you play quite nicely,
too.”

“I am sorry that my profession sticks in your throat,” she answered.
“Do be thankful that I am nothing worse than a tuner. For I might be
something worse–a snob, for instance.”

And, so speaking, she dashed after a butterfly, and left him to
recover from her words. He was conscious of having deserved a reproof;
and when at last he overtook her he said as much, and asked for her
kind indulgence.

“I forgive you,” she said, laughing. “You and I are not looking at
things from the same point of view; but we have had a splendid morning
together, and I have enjoyed every minute of it. And to-morrow I go on
my way.”

“And to-morrow you go,” he repeated. “Can it not be the day after
to-morrow?”

“I am a bird of passage,” she said, shaking her head. “You must not
seek to detain me. I have taken my rest, and off I go to other
climes.”

They had arrived at the hotel, and Oswald Everard saw no more of his
companion until the evening, when she came down rather late for table
d’hote. She hurried over her dinner and went into the salon. She
closed the door, and sat down to the piano, and lingered there without
touching the keys; once or twice she raised her hands, and then she
let them rest on the notes, and, half unconsciously, they began to
move and make sweet music; and then they drifted into Schumann’s
“Abendlied,” and then the little girl played some of his
“Kinderscenen,” and some of his “Fantasie Stucke,” and some of his
songs.

Her touch and feeling were exquisite, and her phrasing betrayed the
true musician. The strains of music reached the dining-room, and, one
by one, the guests came creeping in, moved by the music and anxious to
see the musician.

The little girl did not look up; she was in a Schumann mood that
evening, and only the players of Schumann know what enthralling
possession he takes of their very spirit. All the passion and pathos
and wildness and longing had found an inspired interpreter; and those
who listened to her were held by the magic which was her own secret,
and which had won for her such honour as comes only to the few. She
understood Schumann’s music, and was at her best with him.

Had she, perhaps, chosen to play his music this evening because she
wished to be at her best? Or was she merely being impelled by an
overwhelming force within her? Perhaps it was something of both.

Was she wishing to humiliate these people who had received her so
coldly? This little girl was only human; perhaps there was something
of that feeling too. Who can tell? But she played as she had never
played in London, or Paris, or Berlin, or New York, or Philadelphia.

At last she arrived at the “Carnaval,” and those who heard her
declared afterward that they had never listened to a more magnificent
rendering. The tenderness was so restrained; the vigour was so
refined. When the last notes of that spirited “Marche des
Davidsbundler contre les Philistins” had died away, she glanced at
Oswald Everard, who was standing near her almost dazed.

“And now my favourite piece of all,” she said; and she at once began
the “Second Novelette,” the finest of the eight, but seldom played in
public.

What can one say of the wild rush of the leading theme, and the
pathetic longing of the intermezzo?

     . . . The murmuring dying notes,
     That fall as soft as snow on the sea;

and

     The passionate strain that, deeply going,
     Refines the bosom it trembles through.

What can one say of those vague aspirations and finest thoughts which
possess the very dullest among us when such music as that which the
little girl had chosen catches us and keeps us, if only for a passing
moment, but that moment of the rarest worth and loveliness in our
unlovely lives?

What can one say of the highest music except that, like death, it is
the great leveller: it gathers us all to its tender keeping–and we
rest.

The little girl ceased playing. There was not a sound to be heard; the
magic was still holding her listeners. When at last they had freed
themselves with a sigh, they pressed forward to greet her.

“There is only one person who can play like that,” cried the major,
with sudden inspiration–”she is Miss Thyra Flowerdew.”

The little girl smiled.

“That is my name,” she said, simply; and she slipped out of the room.

The next morning, at an early hour, the bird of passage took her
flight onward, but she was not destined to go off unobserved. Oswald
Everard saw the little figure swinging along the road, and she
overtook her.

“You little wild bird!” he said. “And so this was your great idea–to
have your fun out of us all, and then play to us and make us feel I
don’t know how, and then to go.”

“You said the company wanted stirring up,” she answered, “and I rather
fancy I have stirred them up.”

“And what do you suppose you have done for me?” he asked.

“I hope I have proved to you that the bellows-blower and the organist
are sometimes identical,” she answered.

But he shook his head.

“Little wild bird,” he said, “you have given me a great idea, and I
will tell you what it is: to tame you. So good-bye for the present.”

“Good-bye,” she said. “But wild birds are not so easily tamed.”

Then she waved her hand over her head, and went on her way singing.

It was one o’clock, and many of the students in the National Gallery
had left off work and were refreshing themselves with lunch and
conversation. There was one old worker who had not stirred from his
place, but he had put down his brush, and had taken from his pocket a
small book, which was like its owner–thin and shabby of covering. He
seemed to find pleasure in reading it, for he turned over its pages
with all the tenderness characteristic of one who loves what he reads.
Now and again he glanced at his unfinished copy of the beautiful
portrait of Andrea del Sarto, and once his eyes rested on another copy
next to his, better and truer than his, and once he stopped to pick up
a girl’s prune-coloured tie, which had fallen from the neighbouring
easel. After this he seemed to become unconscious of his surroundings,
as unconscious, indeed, as any one of the pictures near him. Any one
might have been justified in mistaking him for the portrait of a man,
but that his lips moved; for it was his custom to read softly to
himself.

The students passed back to their places, not troubling to notice him,
because they knew from experience that he never noticed them, and that
all greetings were wasted on him and all words were wanton expenditure
of breath. They had come to regard him very much in the same way as
many of us regard the wonders of nature, without astonishment, without
any questionings, and often without any interest. One girl, a new-
comer, did chance to say to her companion:

“How ill that old man looks!”

“Oh, he always looks like that,” was the answer. “You will soon get
accustomed to him. Come along! I must finish my ‘Blind Beggar’ this
afternoon.”

In a few minutes most of the workers were busy again, although there
were some who continued to chat quietly, and several young men who
seemed reluctant to leave their girl friends, and who were by no means
encouraged to go! One young man came to claim his book and pipe, which
he had left in the charge of a bright-eyed girl, who was copying Sir
Joshua’s “Angels.” She gave him his treasures, and received in
exchange a dark-red rose, which she fastened in her belt; and then he
returned to his portrait of Mrs. Siddons. But there was something in
his disconsolate manner which made one suspect that he thought less of
Mrs. Siddons’s beauty than of the beauty of the girl who was wearing
the dark-red rose! The strangers, strolling through the rooms, stopped
now and again to peer curiously at the students’ work. They were
stared at indignantly by the students themselves, but they made no
attempt to move away, and even ventured sometimes to pass criticisms
of no tender character on some of the copies. The fierce-looking man
who was copying “The Horse Fair” deliberately put down his brushes,
folded his arms, and waited defiantly until they had gone by; but
others, wiser in their generation, went on painting calmly. Several
workers were painting the new Raphael; one of them was a white-haired
old gentlewoman, whose hand was trembling, and yet skilful still. More
than once she turned to give a few hints to the young girl near her,
who looked in some distress and doubt. Just the needful help was
given, and then the girl plied her brush merrily, smiling the while
with pleasure and gratitude. There seemed to be a genial, kindly
influence at work, a certain homeliness too, which must needs assert
itself where many are gathered together, working side by side. All
made a harmony; the wonderful pictures, collected from many lands and
many centuries, each with its meaning and its message from the past;
the ever-present memories of the painters themselves, who had worked
and striven and conquered; and the living human beings, each with his
wealth of earnest endeavour and hope.

Meanwhile the old man read on uninterruptedly until two hands were put
over his book and a gentle voice said:

“Mr. Lindall, you have had no lunch again. Do you know, I begin to
hate Lucretius. He always makes you forget your food.”

The old man looked up, and something like a smile passed over his
joyless face when he saw Helen Stanley bending over him.

“Ah,” he answered, “you must not hate Lucretius. I have had more
pleasant hours with him than with any living person.”

He rose and came forward to examine her copy of Andrea del Sarto’s
portrait.

“Yours is better than mine,” he said, critically; “in fact, mine is a
failure. I think I shall only get a small price for mine; indeed, I
doubt whether I shall get sufficient to pay for my funeral.”

“You speak dismally,” she answered, smiling.

“I missed you yesterday,” he continued, half dreamily. “I left my
work, and I wandered through the rooms, and I did not even read
Lucretius. Something seemed to have gone from my life. At first I
thought it must be my favourite Raphael, or the Murillo; but it was
neither the one nor the other; it was you. That was strange, wasn’t
it? But you know we get accustomed to anything, and perhaps I should
have missed you less the second day, and by the end of a week I should
not have missed you at all. Mercifully, we have in us the power of
forgetting.”

“I do not wish to plead for myself,” she said, “but I do not believe
that you or any one could really forget. That which outsiders call
forgetfulness might be called by the better name of resignation.”

“I don’t care about talking any more now,” he said, suddenly, and he
went to his easel and worked silently at his picture; and Helen
Stanley glanced at him, and thought she had never seen her old
companion look so forlorn and desolate as he did to-day. He looked as
if no gentle hand had ever been placed on him in kindliness and
affection, and that seemed to her a terrible thing; for she was one of
those prehistorically minded persons who persist in believing that
affection is as needful to human life as rain to flower life. When
first she came to work at the gallery–some twelve months ago–she had
noticed this old man, and had wished for his companionship; she was
herself lonely and sorrowful, and, although young, had to fight her
own battles, and had learned something of the difficulties of
fighting, and this had given her an experience beyond her years. She
was not more than twenty-four years of age, but she looked rather
older, and, though she had beautiful eyes, full of meaning and
kindness, her features were decidedly plain as well as unattractive.
There were some in the gallery who said among themselves that, as Mr.
Lindall had waited so many years before talking to any one, he might
have chosen some one better worth the waiting for! But they soon
became accustomed to seeing Helen Stanley and Mr. Lindall together,
and they laughed less than before; and meanwhile the acquaintance
ripened into a sort of friendship, half sulky on his part and wholly
kind on her part. He told her nothing about himself, and he asked
nothing about herself; for weeks he never even knew her name.
Sometimes he did not speak at all, and the two friends would work
silently side by side until it was time to go; and then he waited
until she was ready, and walked with her across Trafalgar Square,
where they parted and went their own ways.

But occasionally, when she least expected it, he would speak with
glowing enthusiasm on art; then his eyes seemed to become bright, and
his bent figure more erect, and his whole bearing proud and dignified.
There were times, too, when he would speak on other subjects: on the
morality of free thought–on Bruno, of blessed memory, on him, and
scores of others too. He would speak of the different schools of
philosophy; he would laugh at himself, and at all who, having given
time and thought to the study of life’s complicated problems, had not
reached one step further than the Old-World thinkers. Perhaps he would
quote one of his favourite philosophers, and then suddenly relapse
into silence, returning to his wonted abstraction and to his
indifference to his surroundings. Helen Stanley had learned to
understand his ways and to appreciate his mind, and, without intruding
on him in any manner, had put herself gently into his life as his
quiet champion and his friend. No one in her presence dared speak
slightingly of the old man, or to make fun of his tumble-down
appearance, or of his worn-out silk hat with a crack in the side, or
of his rag of a black tie, which, together with his overcoat, had
“seen better days.” Once she brought her needle and thread, and darned
the torn sleeve during her lunch-time; and, though he never knew it,
it was a satisfaction to her to have helped him.

To-day she noticed that he was painting badly, and that he seemed to
take no interest in his work; but she went on busily with her own
picture, and was so engrossed in it that she did not at first observe
that he had packed up his brushes and was preparing to go home.

“Three more strokes,” he said, quietly, “and you will have finished
your picture. I shall never finish mine; perhaps you will be good
enough to set it right for me. I am not coming here again. I don’t
seem to have caught the true expression; what do you think? But I am
not going to let it worry me, for I am sure you will promise to do
your best for me. See, I will hand over these colours and these
brushes to you, and no doubt you will accept the palette as well. I
have no further use for it.”

Helen Stanley took the palette which he held out toward her, and
looked at him as though she would wish to question him.

“It is very hot here,” he continued, “and I am going out. I am tired
of work.”

He hesitated, and then added, “I should like you to come with me, if
you can spare the time.”

She packed up her things at once, and the two friends moved slowly
away, he gazing absently at the pictures, and she wondering in her
mind as to the meaning of his strange mood.

When they were on the steps inside the building, he turned to Helen
Stanley and said:

“I should like to go back to the pictures once more. I feel as if I
must stand among them just a little longer. They have been my
companions for so long that they are almost part of myself. I can
close my eyes and recall them faithfully. But I want to take a last
look at them; I want to feel once more the presence of the great
masters, and to refresh my mind with their genius. When I look at
their work I think of their life, and can only wonder at their death.
It was so strange that they should die.”

They went back together, and he took her to his favourite pictures,
but remained speechless before them, and she did not disturb his
thoughts. At last he said:

“I am ready to go. I have said farewell to them all. I know nothing
more wonderful than being among a number of fine pictures. It is
almost overwhelming. Once expects nature to be grand, but one does not
expect man to be grand.”

“You know we don’t agree there,” she answered. “I expect everything
grand and great from man.”

They went out of the gallery, and into Trafalgar Square. It was a
scorching afternoon in August, but there was some cooling comfort in
seeing the dancing water of the fountains sparkling so brightly in the
sunshine.

“Do you mind stopping here a few minutes?” he said. “I should like to
sit down and watch. There is so much to see.”

She led the way to a seat, one end of which was occupied by a workman,
who was sleeping soundly, and snoring too, his arms folded tightly
together. He had a little clay pipe in the corner of his mouth; it
seemed to be tucked in so snugly that there was not much danger of its
falling to the ground. At last Helen spoke to her companion.

“What do you mean by saying that you will not be able to finish your
picture? Perhaps you are not well. Indeed, you don’t look well. You
make me anxious, for I have a great regard for you.”

“I am ill and suffering,” he answered, quietly. “I thought I should
have died yesterday; but I made up my mind to live until I saw you
again, and I thought I would ask you to spend the afternoon with me,
and go with me to Westminster Abbey, and sit with me in the cloisters.
I do not feel able to go by myself, and I know of no one to ask except
you; and I believed you would not refuse me, for you have been very
kind to me. I do not quite understand why you have been kind to me,
but I am wonderfully grateful to you. Today I heard some one in the
gallery say that you were plain. I turned round and I said, ‘I beg
your pardon; I think she is very beautiful.’ I think they laughed,
and that puzzled me; for you have always seemed to me a very beautiful
person.”

At that moment the little clay pipe fell from the workman’s mouth and
was broken into bits. He awoke with a start, gazed stupidly at the old
man and his companion, and at the broken clay pipe.

“Curse my luck!” he said, yawning. “I was fond of that damned little
pipe.”

The old man drew his own pipe and his own tobacco-pouch from his
pocket.

“Take these, stranger,” he said. “I don’t want them. And good luck to
you.”

The man’s face brightened up as he took the pipe and pouch.

“You’re uncommon kind,” he said. “Can you spare them?” he added,
holding them out half reluctantly.

“Yes,” answered the old man; “I shall not smoke again. You may as well
have these matches too.”

The labourer put them in his pocket, smiled his thanks, and walked
some little distance off; and Helen watched him examine his new pipe,
and then fill it with tobacco and light it.

Mr. Lindall proposed that they should be getting on their way to
Westminster, and they soon found themselves in the abbey. They sat
together in the Poets’ Corner; a smile of quiet happiness broke over
the old man’s tired face as he looked around and took in all the
solemn beauty and grandeur of the resting-place of the great.

“You know,” he said, half to himself, half to his companion, “I have
no belief of any kind, and no hopes and no fears; but all through my
life it has been a comfort to me to sit quietly in a church or a
cathedral. The graceful arches, the sun shining through the stained
windows, the vaulted roof, the noble columns, have helped me to
understand the mystery which all our books of philosophy cannot make
clear, though we bend over them year after year, and grow old over
them, old in age and in spirit. Though I myself have never been
outwardly a worshipper, I have never sat in a place of worship but
that, for the time being, I have felt a better man. But directly the
voice of doctrine or dogma was raised the spell was broken for me, and
that which I hoped was being made clear had no further meaning for me.
There was only one voice which ever helped me, the voice of the organ,
arousing me, thrilling me, filling me with strange longing, with
welcome sadness, with solemn gladness. I have always thought that
music can give an answer when everything else is of no avail. I do not
know what you believe.”

“I am so young to have found out,” she said, almost pleadingly.

“Don’t worry yourself,” he answered, kindly. “Be brave and strong, and
let the rest go. I should like to live long enough to see what you
will make of your life. I believe you will never be false to yourself
or to any one. That is rare. I believe you will not let any lower
ideal take the place of your high ideal of what is beautiful and noble
in art, in life. I believe that you will never let despair get the
upper hand of you. If it does you may as well die; yes, you may as
well. And I entreat you not to lose your entire faith in humanity.
There is nothing like that for withering up the very core of the
heart. I tell you, humanity and nature have so much in common with
each other that if you lose part of your pleasure in the latter; you
will see less beauty in the trees, the flowers, and the fields, less
grandeur in the mighty mountains and the sea. The seasons will come
and go, and you will scarcely heed their coming and going: winter will
settle over your soul, just as it settled over mine. And you see what
I am.”

They had now passed into the cloisters, and they sat down in one of
the recesses of the windows, and looked out upon the rich plot of
grass which the cloisters enclose. There was not a soul there except
themselves; the cool and the quiet and the beauty of the spot
refreshed these pilgrims, and they rested in calm enjoyment.

Helen was the first to break the silence.

“I am glad you have brought me here,” she said; “I shall never grumble
now at not being able to afford a fortnight in the country. This is
better than anything else.”

“It has always been my summer holiday to come here,” he said. “When I
first came I was like you, young and hopeful, and I had wonderful
visions of what I intended to do and to be. Here it was I made a vow
that I would become a great painter, and win for myself a resting
place in this very abbey. There is humour in the situation, is there
not?”

“I don’t like to hear you say that,” she answered. “It is not always
possible for us to fulfil all our ambitions. Still, it is better to
have had them, and failed of them, than not to have had them at all.”

“Possibly,” he replied, coldly. Then he added, “I wish you would tell
me about yourself. You have always interested me.”

“I have nothing to tell you about myself,” she answered, frankly. “I
am alone in the world, without friends and without relations. The very
name I use is not a real name. I was a foundling. At times I am sorry
I do not belong to any one, and at other times I am glad. You know I
am fond of books and of art, so my life is not altogether empty; and I
find my pleasure in hard work. When I saw you at the gallery I wished
to know you, and I asked one of the students who you were. He told me
you were a misanthrope. Then I did not care so much about knowing you,
until one day you spoke to me about my painting, and that was the
beginning of our friendship.”

“Forty years ago,” he said, sadly, “the friend of my boyhood deceived
me. I had not thought it possible that he could be false to me. He
screened himself behind me, and became prosperous and respected at the
expense of my honour. I vowed I would never again make a friend. A few
years later, when I was beginning to hold up my head, the woman whom I
loved deceived me. Then I put from me all affection and all love.
Greater natures than mine are better able to bear these troubles, but
my heart contracted and withered up.”

He paused for a moment, many recollections overpowering him. Then he
went on telling her the history of his life, unfolding to her the
story of his hopes and ambitions, describing to her the very home
where he was born, and the dark-eyed sister whom he had loved, and
with whom he had played over the daisied fields, and through the
carpeted woods, and all among the richly tinted bracken. One day he
was told she was dead, and that he must never speak her name; but he
spoke it all the day and all the night,–Beryl, nothing but Beryl,–
and he looked for her in the fields and in the woods and among the
bracken. It seemed as if he had unlocked the casket of his heart,
closed for so many years, and as if all the memories of the past and
all the secrets of his life were rushing out, glad to be free once
more, and grateful for the open air of sympathy.

“Beryl was as swift as a deer!” he exclaimed. “You would have laughed
to see her on the moor. Ah, it was hard to give up all the thoughts of
meeting her again. They told me I should see her in heaven, but I did
not care about heaven. I wanted Beryl on earth, as I knew her, a merry
laughing sister. I think you are right: we don’t forget; we become
resigned in a dead, dull kind of way.”

Suddenly he said, “I don’t know why I have told you all this. And yet
it has been such a pleasure to me. You are the only person to whom I
could have spoken about myself, for no one else but you would have
cared.”

“Don’t you think,” she said gently, “that you made a mistake in
letting your experiences embitter you? Because you had been unlucky in
one or two instances it did not follow that all the world was against
you. Perhaps you unconsciously put yourself against all the world, and
therefore saw every one in an unfavourable light. It seems so easy to
do that. Trouble comes to most people, doesn’t it? And your philosophy
should have taught you to make the best of it. At least, that is my
notion of the value of philosophy.”

She spoke hesitatingly, as though she gave utterance to these words
against her will.

“I am sure you are right, child,” he said, eagerly.

He put his hands to his eyes, but he could not keep back the tears.

“I have been such a lonely old man,” he sobbed; “no one can tell what
a lonely, loveless life mine has been. If I were not so old and so
tired I should like to begin all over again.”

He sobbed for many minutes, and she did not know what to say to him of
comfort; but she took his hand within her own, and gently caressed it,
as one might do to a little child in pain. He looked up and smiled
through his tears.

“You have been very good to me,” he said, “and I dare say you have
thought me ungrateful. You mended my coat for me one morning, and not
a day has passed but that I have looked at that darn and thought of
you. I liked to remember that you had done it for me. But you have
done far more than this for me: you have put some sweetness into my
life. Whatever becomes of me hereafter, I shall never be able to think
of my life on earth as anything but beautiful, because you thought
kindly of me and acted kindly for me. The other night, when this
terrible pain came over me, I wished you were near me; I wished to
hear your voice. There is very beautiful music in your voice.”

“I would have come to you gladly,” she said, smiling quietly at him.
“You must make a promise that when you feel ill again you will send
for me. Then you will see what a splendid nurse I am, and how soon you
will become strong and well under my care, strong enough to paint many
more pictures, each one better than the last. Now will you promise?”

“Yes,” he said, and he raised her hand reverently to his lips.

“You are not angry with me for doing that?” he asked, suddenly. “I
should not like to vex you.”

“I am not vexed,” she answered, kindly.

“Then perhaps I may kiss it once more?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered; and again he raised her hand to his lips.

“Thank you,” he said quietly; “that was kind of you. Do you see that
broken sun-ray yonder? Is it not golden? I find it very pleasant to
sit here; and I am quite happy, and almost free from pain. Lately I
have been troubled with a dull thudding pain near my heart; but now I
feel so strong that I believe I shall finish that Andrea del Sarto
after all.”

“Of course you will,” she answered, cheerily, “and I shall have to
confess that yours is better than mine! I am quite willing to yield
the palm to you.”

“I must alter the expression of the mouth,” he replied. “That is the
part which has worried me. I don’t think I told you that I have had a
commission to copy Rembrandt’s ‘Old Jew.’ I must set to work on that
next week.”

“But you have given me your palette and brushes!” she laughed.

“You must be generous enough to lend them to me,” he said, smiling.
“By the way, I intend to give you my books, all of them. Some day I
must show them to you. I especially value my philosophical books; they
have been my faithful companions through many years. I believe you do
not read Greek. That is a pity, because you would surely enjoy
Aristotle. I think I must teach you Greek; it would be an agreeable
legacy to leave you when I pass away into the Great Silence.”

“I should like to learn,” she said, wondering to hear him speak so
unreservedly. It seemed as if some vast barrier had been rolled aside,
and as if she were getting to know him better, having been allowed to
glance into his past life, to sympathise with his past mistakes, and
with the failure of his ambitions, and with the deadening of his
heart.

“You must read AEschylus,” he continued, enthusiastically; “and, if I
mistake not, the Agamemnon will be an epoch in your life. You will
find that all these studies will serve to ennoble your art, and you
will be able to put mind into your work, and not merely form and
colour. Do you know, I feel so well that I believe I shall not only
live to finish Andrea del Sarto, but also to smoke another pipe?”

“You have been too rash to-day,” she laughed, “giving away your pipe
and pouch, your palette and brushes, in this reckless manner! I must
get you a new pipe to-morrow. I wonder you did not part with your
venerable Lucretius.”

“That reminds me,” he said, fumbling in his pocket; “I think I have
dropped my Lucretius. I fancy I left it somewhere in the Poets’
Corner. It would grieve me to lose that book.”

“Let me go and look for it,” she said, and she advanced a few steps,
and then came back to him.

“You have been saying many kind words to me,” she said, as she put her
hand on his arm, “and I have not told you that I value your
friendship, and am grateful to you for letting me be more than a mere
stranger to you. I have been very lonely in my life, for I am not one
to make friends easily, and it has been a great privilege to me to
talk with you. I want you to know this: for if I have been anything to
you, you have been a great deal to me. I have never met with much
sympathy from those of my own age: I have found them narrow and
unyielding, and they found me dull and uninteresting. They had passed
through few experiences and knew nothing about failure or success, and
some of them did not even understand the earnestness of endeavour, and
laughed at me when I spoke of a high ideal. So I withdrew into myself,
and should probably have grown still more isolated than I was before,
but that I met you, and, as time went on, we became friends. I shall
always remember your teaching, and I will try to keep to a high ideal
of life and art and endeavour, and I will not let despair creep into
my heart, and I will not lose my faith in humanity.”

As she spoke a lingering ray of sunshine lit up her face and gently
caressed her soft brown hair; slight though her form, sombre her
clothes, and unlovely her features, she seemed a gracious presence
because of her earnestness.

“Now,” she said, cheerily, “you rest here until I come back with your
Lucretius, and then I think I must be getting on my way home. But you
must fix a time for our first Greek lesson, for we must begin
to-morrow.”

When she had gone he walked in the cloisters, holding his hat in his
hand and his stick under his arm. There was a quiet smile on his face,
which was called forth by pleasant thoughts in his mind, and he did
not look quite so shrunken and shrivelled as usual. His eyes were
fixed on the ground, but he raised them, and observed a white cat
creeping toward him. It came and rubbed itself against his foot, and,
purring with all its might, seemed determined to win some kind of
notice from him. The old man stooped down to stroke it, and was just
touching its sleek coat when he suddenly withdrew his hand and groaned
deeply. He struggled to the recess, and sank back. The stick fell on
the stone with a clatter, and the battered hat rolled down beside it,
and the white cat fled away in terror; but realising that there was no
cause for alarm, it came back and crouched near the silent figure of
the old man, watching him intently. Then it stretched out its paw and
played with his hand, doing its utmost to coax him into a little fun;
but he would not be coaxed, and the cat lost all patience with him,
and left him to himself.

 

Meanwhile Helen Stanley was looking for the lost Lucretius in the
Poets’ Corner. She found it laying near Chaucer’s tomb, and was just
going to take it to her friend when she saw the workman to whom they
had spoken in Trafalgar Square. He recognised her at once, and came
toward her.

“I’ve been having a quiet half-hour here,” he said. “It does me a
sight of good to sit in the abbey.”

“You should go into the cloisters,” she said, kindly. “I have been
sitting there with my friend. He will be interested to hear that you
love this beautiful abbey.”

“I should like to see him again,” said the workman. “He had a kind way
about him, and that pipe he gave me is an uncommon good one. Still, I
am sorry I smashed the little clay pipe. I’d grown used to it. I’d
smoked it ever since my little girl died and left me alone in the
world. I used to bring my little girl here, and now I come alone. But
it isn’t the same thing.”

“No, it could not be the same thing,” said Helen, gently. “But you
find some comfort here?”

“Some little comfort,” he answered. “One can’t expect much.”

They went together into the cloisters, and as they came near the
recess where the old man rested Helen said:

“Why, he has fallen asleep! He must have been very tired. And he has
dropped his hat and stick. Thank you. If you will put them down there,
I will watch by his side until he wakes up. I don’t suppose he will
sleep for long.”

The workman stooped down to pick up the hat and stick, and glanced at
the sleeper. Something in the sleeper’s countenance arrested his
attention. He turned to the girl, and saw that she was watching him.

“What is it?” she asked anxiously. “What is the matter with you?”

He tried to speak, but his voice failed him, and all he could do was
to point with trembling hand to the old man.

Helen looked, and a loud cry broke from her lips. The old man was
dead.