The Argosy — page 293: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Great Mystery. 275 “I can recognize every spot in this ”—opening the album again ‘And I have not seen it for fifteen years.” “Fifteen! I—I understood you to say you were ten years old when you left it.” ““So I was. I am twenty-five now.” So much as that! So much older than any of us! I could hardly believe it. ‘TI should not have taken you for more than seventeen, Miss Carey.” ‘ At seventeen I went out to get my own living,” she said, in a sad tone but with a candour that I liked. ‘“ That is eight years ago.” Helen’s music ceased with a crash. Miss Deveen came up to Janet Carey. “© My dear, I hear you can sing: your aunt tells me so. Will you sing a song to please me?” She was bke a startled fawn : looking here, looking there ; and turn- ing white and then red. But she rose at once. “I will sing if you wish it,ma’am. But my singing is only plain sing- ing: just a few old songs. I have never learnt.” “The old songs are the best,” said Miss Deveen. ‘Can you sing that sweet song of all songs—‘ Blow, blow, thou wintry wind?’ ” She went to the piano, struck the chords quietly, without any flourish or prelude, and began the first note. Oh the soft, sweet, musical voice that broke upon us! Not a grand powerful voice that astounds the nerves like an electric machine ; but one of that intense, thrilling, plaintive harmony which brings a mist to the eye and a throb tothe heart. Tod backed against the wall to look at her: Bill, who had taken up the cat, let it drop through his knees. You might have heard a pin drop when the last words died away : “ As friends remembering not.” Miss Deveen broke the silence : prais- ing her and telling to go on again. The girl did not seem to have the east notion of refusing : she appeared to have hved under submission. I think Miss Deveen would have liked her to go on for ever. ‘The wonder to me is that you can remember the accompaniment to somany songs without your notes,” cried Helen Whitney. “7 do not know my notes. I[ cannot play.” ‘ Not know your notes !” “T never learnt them. I never learnt music. I just play some few chords by ear that harmonise with-the songs. That is why my singing is so poor, so different from other people’s. Where I have been living they say it 1s not worth listening to.” She spoke in a meek, deprecating manner. I had heard of self- depreciation: this was an instance of it. Janet Carey was one of the humble ones. Good Friday. We went to church under lowering clouds. and came home again to luncheon. Cattledon’s face was all vinegar. COMIC OOOKS. EO