Page:Rose in Bloom (Alcott).djvu/152

 applause was genuine and spontaneous this time, and broke out again and again with the generous desire to atone for former coldness. But she would not return, and the shadow of the great organ seemed to have swallowed her up; for no eye could find her, no pleasant clamor win her back.

"Now I can die content," said Rose, beaming with heart-felt satisfaction; while Archie looked steadfastly at his programme, trying to keep his face in order, and the rest of the family assumed a triumphant air, as if they had never doubted from the first.

"Very well, indeed," said the stout man, with an approving nod. "Quite promising for a beginner. Shouldn't wonder if in time they made a second Cary or Kellogg of her."

"Now you'll forgive him, won't you?" murmured Charlie, in his cousin's ear.

"Yes; and I'd like to pat him on the head. But take warning and never judge by first appearances again," whispered Rose, at peace now with all mankind.

Phebe's last song was another ballad; for she meant to devote her talent to that much neglected but always attractive branch of her art. It was a great surprise, therefore, to all but one person in the hall, when, instead of singing "Auld Robin Grey," she placed herself at the piano, and, with a smiling glance over her shoulder at the children, broke out in the old bird-song which first won Rose. But the