Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/79

Rh charming. He stood with his hand on the curtain, listening—and with a pleasure that astonished him. The song came to an end with a chord in which all the strings twanged their best. Then there was silence—then a sigh, and the sound of light moving feet on the gravel. He threw back the curtain and leaned out of the window.

"Here!" he called to the figure that moved slowly towards the gate. She turned quickly, and came back two steps. She wore the dress of a Contadina, a very smart dress indeed, and her hands looked small and white.

"Won't you sing again?" he asked.

She hesitated, then struck a chord or two and began another of those little tuneful Italian songs, all stars and flowers and hearts of gold. And again he listened with a quiet pleasure.

"I should like to hear her voice at its full strength," he thought—and now it was time to give the vagrant a few coppers, and, shutting the window, to leave her to go on to the next front garden.

Never had any act seemed so impossible. He had watched her through the singing of this last