was not only permitted to remain to hear the
end of a love song of strictly guarded passion in the subjunctive
mood, but at the close was invited to try his hand--a quick, if not a
cultivated one--at the instrument. He did so. Like her, he added his
voice. Like hers, it was a love song. But there the similitude ended.
Negro in dialect, illiterate in construction, idiotic in passion, and
presumably addressed to the "Rose of Alabama," in the very extravagance
of its childish infatuation it might have been a mockery of the
schoolmistress's song but for one tremendous fact! In unrestrained
feeling, pathetic yearning, and exquisite tenderness of expression, it
was unmistakably and appallingly personal and sincere. It was true the
lips spoken of were "lubly," the eyes alluded to were like "lightenin'
bugs," but from the voice and gestures of the singer Mrs. Martin
confusedly felt that they were intended for HERS, and even the refrain
that "she dressed so neat and looked so sweet" was glaringly allusive
to her own modish mourning. Alternately flushing and paling, with a
hysteric smile hovering round her small reserved mouth, the unfortunate
gentlewoman was fain to turn to the window to keep her countenance until
it was concluded. She did not ask him to repeat it, nor did she again
subject herself to this palpable serenade, but a few days afterwards, as
she was idly striking the keys in the interval of a music lesson, one
of her little pupils broke out, "Why, Mrs. Martin, if yo ain't a pickin'
out that pow'ful pretty tune that Mr. Twing sings!"

Nevertheless, when Twing, a week or two later, suggested that he might
sing the same song as a solo at a certain performance to be given by the
school children in aid of a local charity, she drily intimated that it
was hardly of a character to suit the entertainment. "But," she added,
more gently, "you recite so well; why not give a recitation?"

He looked at her with questioning and troubled eyes,--the one expression
he seemed to have lately acquired. "But that would be IN PUBLIC!
There'll be a lot of people there," he said doubtfully.

A little amused at this first apparent sign of a want of confidence in
himself, she said, with a reassuring smile, "So much the better,--you do
it really too well to have it thrown away entirely on children."

"Do YOU wish it?" he said suddenly.

Somewhat confused, but more irritated by his abruptness, she replied,
"Why not?" But when the day came,