"
Graciella and her friends had finished their song, the piano had
ceased to sound, and the visitors were taking their leave. Graciella
went with them to the gate, where they stood laughing and talking. The
colonel looked at his watch by the light of the open door.
"It is not late," he said. "If my memory is true, you too played the
piano when you--when I was young."
"It is the same piano, Henry, and, like our life here, somewhat thin
and weak of tone. But if you think it would give you pleasure, I will
play--as well as I know how."
She readjusted the veil, which had slipped from her mother's face, and
they went into the parlour. From a pile of time-stained music she
selected a sheet and seated herself at the piano. The colonel stood at
her elbow. She had a pretty back, he thought, and a still youthful
turn of the head, and still plentiful, glossy brown hair. Her hands
were white, slender and well kept, though he saw on the side of the
forefinger of her left hand the telltale marks of the needle.
The piece was an arrangement of the well-known air from the opera of
_Maritana_:
_"Scenes that are brightest,
May charm awhile,
Hearts which are lightest
And eyes that smile.
Yet o'er them above us,
Though nature beam,
With none to love us,
How sad they seem!"_
Under her sympathetic touch a gentle stream of melody flowed from the
old-time piano, scarcely stronger toned in its decrepitude, than the
spinet of a former century.
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