Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/160

 the old china rose-jar that stood on the polished mahogany table inside. The first few notes of the piano carried with them to him who knew the room so well a never-fading picture of the peaceful, old-time parlor: the willow plates in the mother-o'-pearl cabinet, the "Sistine Madonna" and Correggio's "Holy Night," the dim oil-paintings that great-grandmother Endicott had made so long ago, the bronze Chinese idol that squatted near the rose-jar, the dusky, elusive pier-glass with its dull gilding of another generation and its mysterious, haunting reflections—they were all confused with the tune that Miss Sabina's sweet, reedy voice had so often quavered through; a tune that she would not have known by its title of "":

{{block center|{{fine block| Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, {{em|1}}That I gaze on so fondly to-day, Were to change by to-morrow and to fleet in my arms, {{em|1}}Like fairy gifts fading away,