At the Time Appointed

"I beg your pardon," Darrell stammered, somewhat dazed by his sudden

descent to the commonplace, "I ought not to have taken it; I never

thought,--I was so delighted to find the instrument and so carried away

with its tones,--it never occurred to me how it might seem to you!"

"Oh, that is all right," she interposed, quietly; "use it whenever you

like. Harry bought it two years ago, but he never had the patience to

learn it, so it has been used very little. I never heard such playing as

yours, and I stepped in to ask you to bring it downstairs and play for

us to-night. Mr. Britton will be delighted; he enjoys everything of that

sort."

Around the fireside that evening Darrell had an attentive audience,

though the appreciation of his auditors was manifested in a manner

characteristic of each. Mr. Underwood, after two or three futile

attempts to talk business with his partner, finding him very

uncommunicative, gave himself up to the enjoyment of his pipe and the

music in about equal proportions, indulging surreptitiously in

occasional brief naps, though always wide awake at the end of each

number and joining heartily in the applause.

Mrs. Dean sat gazing into the glowing embers, her face lighted with

quiet pleasure, but her knitting-needles twinkled and flashed in the

firelight with the same unceasing regularity, and she doubled and seamed

and "slipped and bound" her stitches with the same monotonous precision

as on other evenings.

Mr. Britton, in a comfortable reclining-chair, sat silent, motionless,

his head thrown back, his eyes nearly closed, but in the varying

expression of his mobile face Darrell found both inspiration and

compensation.

For more than three hours Darrell entertained his friends; quaint

medleys, dreamy waltzes, and bits of classical music following one after

another, with no effort, no hesitancy, on the part of the player. To

their eager inquiries, he could only answer,-"I don't know how I do it. They seem to come to me with the sweep of

the bow across the strings. I have no recollection of anything that I am

playing; it seems as though the instrument and I were simply drifting."

Late in the evening, when they were nearly ready to separate for the

night, Darrell sat idly strumming the violin, when an old familiar

strain floated sweetly forth, and his astonished listeners suddenly

heard him singing in a rich baritone an old love-song, forgotten until

then by every one present.

Mrs. Dean had already laid aside her work and sat with hands folded, a

smile of unusual tenderness hovering about her lips, while Mr. Britton's

face was quivering with emotion. At its conclusion he grasped Darrell's

hand silently.

"That is a very old song," said Mrs. Dean. "It seems queer to hear you

sing it. I used to hear it sung when I was a young girl, and that," she

added smiling, "was a great many years ago."