n the angry sisters. When she spoke, Tom held his breath, so
eagerly he listened; when she sang, he sat like one entranced. She
touched his organ, and from that bright epoch even it, the old companion
of his happiest hours, incapable as he had thought of elevation, began a
new and deified existence.

God's love upon thy patience, Tom! Who, that had beheld thee, for three
summer weeks, poring through half the deadlong night over the jingling
anatomy of that inscrutable old harpsichord in the back parlour, could
have missed the entrance to thy secret heart: albeit it was dimly known
to thee? Who that had seen the glow upon thy cheek when leaning down to
listen, after hours of labour, for the sound of one incorrigible note,
thou foundest that it had a voice at last, and wheezed out a flat
something, distantly akin to what it ought to be, would not have known
that it was destined for no common touch, but one that smote, though
gently as an angel's hand, upon the deepest chord within thee! And if
a friendly glance--aye, even though it were as guileless as thine own,
Dear Tom--could have but pierced the twilight of that evening, when, in
a voice well tempered to the time, sad, sweet, and low, yet hopeful, she
first sang to the altered instrument, and wondered at the change;
and thou, sitting apart at the open window, kept a glad silence and a
swelling heart--must not that glance have read perforce the dawning of a
story, Tom, that it were well for thee had never been begun!

Tom Pinch's situation was not made the less dangerous or difficult by
the fact of no one word passing between them in reference to Martin.
Honourably mindful of his promise, Tom gave her opportunities of all
kinds. Early and late he was in the church; in her favourite walks; in
the village, in the garden, in the meadows; and in any or all of these
places he might have spoken freely. But no; at all such times she
carefully avoided him, or never came in his way unaccompanied. It could
not be that she disliked or distrusted him, for by a thousand little
delicate means, too slight for any notice but his own, she singled
him out when others were present, and showed herself the very soul of
kindness. Could it be that she had broken with Martin, or had never
returned his affection, save in his own bold and heightened fancy? Tom's
cheek grew red with self-reproach as he dismissed the thought.

All this time old Martin came and went in his own strange manner, or