Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/275

 candle-light, turning a starlit face toward him, and rising with a dazed, uncertain gesture to meet him.

But she was herself in a moment, and came forward, saying deprecatingly:

"Oh Dr. Winship! I am so sorry everybody is out!"

"It didn't sound as though everybody were out a moment ago," he said, grasping her hand very warmly. "I came in to thank you for your music."

"Did you like it?" she cried, with a childlike spontaneous delight which was very winning.

"Doesn't everybody?" he asked.

"I never play to anybody except for dancing."

"I hope you will play for me sometimes. But not to-night." heto-night," he [sic] added, gently. "You have played yourself into a fever."

It was the most delicious thing Mary Anne had experienced in all her life. First the praise and then this solicitude and gentleness.

"Where did you learn to play?" he asked presently, as he sat beside the music-stand looking over the little collection of pieces.

"I never learned. That is just the trouble," she said. "I took lessons till I was twelve years old, and then it got crowded out."

"Crowded out, when you were twelve years old! What a busy child you must have been!"

She laughed and said, "I'm afraid I was only slow."