Richard Lister had been a placid, comfortable baby, though his birth had followed a period of deep anguish in his mother's life. To her he was a miracle, an incredible phenomenon, his dependence upon her for every need of his little being the most heavenly experience she had ever had. He slept a proper and wholesome number of hours and remained awake long enough for ample petting, and for the first twelve years of his life he was scarcely out of her sight. She tended him awake and watched him while he slept, enduring with considerable pain the sight of him in the arms of any one except his father or Thomasina Davis or 'Manda.

When he was five years old, she entered upon a period of anxiety whose beginning she had set for this time. She compelled herself to realize that she could not have him always; that the small imitations of mannish clothes which he wore would be presently exchanged for full-grown originals which he would put on and off without her aid. He would have, moreover, some day a wife who would supersede his mother in the delectable kingdom of his heart.

She began also to anticipate the moment when she must begin to discipline him, and to dread the various forms of infant crime for which she searched her mind. Presently he would cease to obey promptly; he would refuse to put his toys away neatly on the low shelf of the cupboard assigned to him; he would stamp and scream like other naughty little boys. He might, alas, take pennies from her pocketbook. Then there would be the fondness for tobacco and playing-cards on whose account he would have to be struggled with and possibly whipped. She had never been whipped, and she had good reason to doubt the efficacy of whipping, but she would not allow her own observation to contradict Biblical injunction. No one but herself, however, should lay hand or switch upon Richard, hideous as such necessity would be to her.

But Richard needed no whipping and his mother could decide upon no moment when the discipline, to which she had given so many hours of anxious thought, should begin. He continued, up to and long past the age of five, to be the most biddable little child that ever lived, satisfied with what he had, requiring no other companionship than that of his father and mother and 'Manda, playing a great deal by himself, and never screaming or stamping or taking pennies from pocketbooks. He liked, as he grew older, to have little Cora Scott come to play with him, but to the Scotts he would not go without his mother, having a wholly justifiable fear of Walter.

He was allowed each pleasant morning in summer to cross the broad, grassy field back of the campus to a little stream, tin bait-can, fishing-rod, and package of lunch in hand, and a great old straw hat of his father's on his head. As he sat and fished, 'Manda could watch him from the kitchen window and his mother could gloat over him from a window above. Even Dr. Lister left his work once an hour to see how he fared. If it were a baking morning 'Manda would go down with a fresh patty-cake or a handful of cookies.

Luck was always poor with Richard, probably because he sang constantly while he fished. His repertoire was composed of hymns and songs of a rather solemn cast. He was particularly fond of the lengthy liturgical service of the church, and prayed the Lord a hundred times in a morning to have mercy upon him. The fervor with which he expressed this plea frightened his mother, who feared that such intense emotion indicated a spirit not long for this world.

Sometimes in the evenings he and 'Manda held a concert at the kitchen door, 'Manda in her rocking-chair on the porch, Richard on the lowest step, hands on knees, eyes gazing upon the meadow with its shadowy trees and its myriad fireflies or looking up at the stars. 'Manda was loath to leave upon such occasions and sat long after the hour when she was usually in the colored settlement.

Richard was the soloist and always selected and began the hymns. Frequently the two took liberties with the original form. Richard made a long pause after each line of "I was a wandering sheep," and 'Manda's rich contralto inserted an eerie, tender, indescribably deep and rich "po' lamb!" The refrain varied constantly and the variety indicated a keen instinct for harmony.

When he changed to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," or "Hallelu," or "These Bones Shall Rise Again," 'Manda ceased to rock, and bending forward, hands on knees, joined in at the beginning, her rich voice furnishing a background for the child's soprano with its piercing sweetness. In her performance was all the savagery of deepest Africa and besides all spiritual meanings and desires. Thomasina Davis, sitting often with Dr. and Mrs. Lister on the porch on the other side of the house, commanded every one to stop and listen.

"It makes clear the universal kinship of believers," said she with shining eyes. "There are a hundred thrilling suggestions in that duet of blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon and black-haired African."

Dr. Lister smiled back at Thomasina. Mrs. Lister did not understand exactly what she meant, but she smiled also and obeyed willingly the command for silence. No sound in the world was so sweet to her as Richard's voice.

Little Richard liked also to preach. The audience which he usually selected was, like that of St. Anthony, one of fishes. In imagination he saw before him, from his pulpit on the bank, a decorous congregation and a tuneful choir. His performance, while it shocked his mother, yet gave her hope that he might incline toward the ministry. Her father, for whom he was named, had had theological training and used to preach in the college church. It seemed to her often that she could see in Richard's solemn gestures a resemblance to those of the grave old man.

Richard's discourses suggested no such probability to his father, eavesdropping from behind a convenient tree. They were pleasant to Dr. Lister, who sometimes feared that a boy who was never uproarious, who always remembered to wipe his shoes on the mat, and who never carried toads or mice in his pockets, might be too amiable and good. He wished for a little temper, a little disobedience, a little steel under the satin. When Richard cried out, "Oh, you darned fishes!" in imitation of the ice man whom Mrs. Lister could neither silence nor reform, his father was convulsed.

When Richard grew older and ceased to sing, his mother, while she missed his hymns, was content. Thus had Basil sung when he was a little boy. At Thomasina's suggestion, Richard had begun early to take music lessons from her. Except that he had often to be summoned from the old piano to other duties, and that he often called to his mother to listen to little melodies which he invented or to certain resolutions of chords which pleased him, and which were to her ear like any other musical sounds, he gave no disturbing sign of special interest in music. Sometimes he repeated stories of musicians which Thomasina told him, about Beethoven who was an accomplished player at the age of nine, and who had become deaf when he had scarcely left his youth, and about Handel who had become blind. Richard's face would glow and his eyes shine with tears.

"Could you imagine, mother, how he felt when he knew that he could never hear again? He never heard his greatest works. Think of it, mother, what a fearful thing that would be!"

Mrs. Lister could not imagine it and would not think of it, having but slight conception of the pleasures which harmonious sound can give to the ear of the musician. Thus had Basil called upon her for sympathy in his strange, incomprehensible satisfactions. She wished that Thomasina would not tell Richard such stories.

Richard was always busy. He kept a series of little notebooks, neatly indexed; he cut clippings from newspapers and filed them away; he divided his day into periods for each sort of study, for exercise, and for play.

Soon after he entered college, his voice returned, a clear, serviceable tenor. He led the Glee Club which then took no long journeys round the country, but sang for its own amusement and that of the college, and he played the chapel organ and the assembly room piano. He continued to practice at home, but his practice was chiefly that of dull exercises and unending scales which roused no alarm in his mother's breast, and which his father regarded fearfully as the indication of a rather feeble intellect seeking exercise which involved no mental or physical effort. Richard called out no more with tears, "Oh, mother, did you know that Handel was blind?" cried out no more, "Oh, mother, listen!" in ecstasy over some sound which he had produced, no more, "That is to be played delicatessimente, mother. Isn't that a beautiful word?" Richard's musical passion, at least so it seemed to his mother, had died a natural death. She could not quite understand why he sought the society of Cora Scott so seldom and that of Thomasina for several hours daily—but that was a choice to be thankful for at his age.

In the fall he would have to begin in earnest to prepare for whatever profession he was to follow. So far there had been no family discussion of this matter. Mrs. Lister had not quite given up her hopes that he might become a preacher. Of the other professions open to him, medicine, law, and teaching, she hoped that he would choose teaching. Then they could all stay here, forever.

As a matter of fact—alas, for poor Mrs. Lister!—Richard's plans were made, and of them in their entirety one person knew beside himself. Under Richard's satin there was steel. His life-work had been selected and he meant to begin to-morrow. His Commencement money would buy him a clavier and to it he intended to devote the summer. He could have it in his own room where it would disturb no one and where he could look upon it when he woke and practice upon it when he was supposed to be in bed. He knew that his mother was not fond of music, but his mother would let him have his way, had always let him have his way. He did not realize that thus far his way had been hers. In the fall he would go to study with Faversham in New York, and therefore it was probable that he would be at home no more. Thus lightly does youth arrange for itself. If poor Mary Alcestis could have looked into Richard's mind as he sat beside her at the dinner table when Commencement was over, and could there have read its hopes and plans so alien to her own, her heart would have been nearly broken.

Thomasina Davis was not sanguine about Mrs. Lister's easy yielding to Richard's wishes. She was prepared to talk to his parents by the hour if need be; she would have been willing to live on bread and water and go without shoes so that he should be able to study. She was determined to behold in him the fruit of her labors. Faversham had been a fellow pupil in the three happy years away from Waltonville; to send Richard Lister to him with supple, well-trained fingers and with fine taste, to have Richard say to him that he was a pupil of Thomasina Davis, was a reward she had promised herself since Richard had sat beside her piano on a high chair, enchanted by her music. Thomasina, unlike Mrs. Lister, had a profound respect, an adoration, indeed, for genius. This adoration was innate, but it owed its strength to certain events in her past, a past which seemed to Mrs. Lister to have been pathetically empty of most of women's joys.

When Commencement and the Commencement dinner were over, Richard felt suddenly restless. He realized that there was nothing that he must do, that no lessons waited. He sat for a while talking with his mother's guests, then he went out to the kitchen, meaning to escape across the campus to the chapel and play. That was what he wanted and needed, the touch of the smooth keys under his fingers, the sound of the full, rich organ tones, to give him, instead of this sense of idleness and emptiness, a consciousness of all the work that was beginning.

But there were obstacles in the way of his playing. The chapel organ and the assembly room piano were public; he would have an audience in a few minutes, and he did not wish an audience. If he could find some one to play duets with him, he would have the volume of sound for which his ear longed. Thomasina was away; only Cora Scott remained. Cora did not read well, but they could play compositions which she knew.

'Manda paused in her dishwashing to regard him with a warm and beaming glance which expressed entire sympathy with him in his flight.

"Goin' to git out, honey?"

"Yes, 'Mandy, I'se goin' to git out."

Making a wide dÉtour in the shrubbery and round the back of the chapel, he approached the Scotts' porch. Then he stopped short. There in white splendor sat the stranger whom he had seen that morning in the chapel gallery. He turned promptly away.

"No sitting for an hour listening to that!" said he.

Then it was, swayed by the slight incident of Evan Utterly's presence, that Richard, who had hitherto sailed in such a calm domestic stream, turned his boat into another and an alien channel. He said to himself that he would play, that he would perish if he did not play. He considered going to Thomasina's, even though she was not at home and rousing 'Melia from her afternoon nap to let him in. But when he had reached Thomasina's gate, he thought of Eleanor Bent.

Eleanor played well; he had heard her at Thomasina's. She was pretty and bright, but not very friendly. There was, he believed, something queer about her and her mouselike little mother. He had a vague feeling that his own mother would not quite approve of his going to their house.

But he had set his mind upon playing the Eighth Symphony, and, if possible, several other symphonies. He had, he remembered suddenly and happily, a volume of music belonging to Eleanor Bent, which he had carried away by accident from Thomasina's. He would take this round to Eleanor, and if she were not cordial or the piano not tolerable, he would come away.

With the same care he stole back through the shrubbery to the kitchen door and succeeded, after ludicrous blunders, in getting through 'Manda the volume which he sought. As he crossed the campus again, he saw Utterly rising from his chair. But the die was cast; it was with Eleanor Bent that he wished to play and not with Cora Scott. He kept on his way through the college gate and down the broad street which led to the other side of the town, whistling softly as he went, and feeling a sense of freedom and adventure.

Mrs. Bent let him in from the little front porch to the neat little hall. He explained that he was Richard Lister and that he had come to return a book of Eleanor's, and she invited him into the parlor, saying that Eleanor would appear in a few minutes. Eleanor had had a surprise, she explained, which had delayed their dinner. Her cheeks were flushed; she seemed to be excited.

There was nothing queer to Richard's eye, either in Mrs. Bent, or, at his first glance, in the interior of her little house. All was fresh and neat and simple and in good taste. There was a picture opposite the door, a view of the Castel Angelo, exactly like one which hung in his father's study; there were pretty curtains, there was—Richard stopped short in the doorway, the bright color in his fair cheeks fading rapidly away and then as suddenly returning. Here before him in the parlor of this little gray house, unknown of him, was a new piano! Moreover, it was a magnificent grand piano, finer than Thomasina's, finer, indeed, than any piano he had ever seen. He did not need to read the name on the front; its very shape was familiar to him from catalogues at which he had gazed in inexpressible longing.

"Why, Mrs. Bent!" cried Richard.

Mrs. Bent smiled in her frightened way at his confusion and delight.

"That is the surprise," said she. "It is hers. It came while she was at the exercises."

"It looks as though it hadn't been touched!"

"It hasn't. She had sort of a queer spell when she saw it"—was that right, or was it "seen"?—"I said she would better eat something."

"It was a surprise to her?"

"Yes."

"How glorious! I wish some one would surprise me that way!"

Left alone, Richard walked round and round staring at the shining rosewood and the gleaming keys. He had expected—he almost laughed aloud as he remembered—an upright piano of a poor make, covered with a velvet cover laden with vases and photographs. Thus was the Scott piano decorated. And here was really a grand piano, and the best grand piano that could be bought! If he might only play it!

Eleanor found him walking about. She held out her hand, like her mother all excitement and friendliness. She still wore her beautiful embroidered dress, full in the skirt and low in the neck. Her hair was ruffled and her eyes more than ever brilliant.

There were no introductory explanations. Richard forgot to say why he had come, never explained, indeed, until long afterward when together, as is the custom of those in like case, they made each impulse, each trivial incident of their association the subject of conversation.

"It hasn't been touched," said Eleanor. "When I saw it I forgot how to play!"

"Does Miss Thomasina know about it?"

"She selected it in Baltimore. She had known about it for weeks and I knew nothing. It doesn't seem as though it could be real. Will you, oh, will you play it first?"

Richard turned pale once more.

"I'm not sure that I can play either. I'm not sure that I ever touched a piano!"

"Oh, you can! Something with great, heavy, rolling, smashing chords. I know that if I touch it it will disappear, and I can't possibly wait till Miss Thomasina comes home. I never could have got through Commencement if I had known it was here."

"Nor I. If I had met it, I would have followed it like the children follow the elephant, and some one else might have saluted the audience. It makes Commencement seem like three cents."

"Now, play!" commanded Eleanor. "Mother!"

Mrs. Bent came to the door. Richard saw her look at her daughter, and the glance was worth coming farther than this to see. It adored her, swept over her from head to foot, devoured her. Something of its intensity entered into Richard. Eleanor was older than he; she had stood ahead of him in school; she had scarcely spoken to him a dozen times; but she became in that moment a creature to be admired, to be cherished. Life changed for him, boyhood was left behind. He met Eleanor's eyes and saw in them youth, curiosity about himself, restlessness, a reflection, it seemed to him, of the confused emotions of his own heart. It was Eleanor's gaze which first turned away.

"The concert is going to begin, mother."

Mrs. Bent sat down in the bay window and Eleanor took a chair from which she could watch Richard's beautiful hands. Once after he had taken his place on the stool, he looked into her eager face, then he let his hands fall upon the keys. He shut his eyes to keep back starting tears. He remembered that some one had said that life held few moments to which a man would say, "Stay, thou art so fair!" The saying was not true. Here was such a moment; there would be for him, he knew, a thousand more.

A Schumann NachtstÜck, a Bach Prelude, a Mozart Sonata rolled from under his fingers, which then danced into a jig, performances allowed by Thomasina. There were others, forbidden except under her own direction and in careful, studious sections. These Richard now hazarded boldly and played them not ill. A dozen compositions finished, he whirled round upon the piano stool.

"Won't you play, now?"

"I can't."

"Will you play with me?"

"There is nothing here."

"I brought the second volume of Beethoven with me."

"I will try," promised Eleanor.

Richard spread the music open on the rack. Both had been trained by Thomasina, both played easily and well, both knew their parts. Shoulders and hands touched; sometimes Richard laughed aloud from sheer pleasure, sometimes he sang an air, sometimes he stopped to give directions. At that Eleanor laughed a little nervously. Richard seemed to all his mates to hold himself above them, to be dictatorial. He had seemed all of this to Eleanor, but now she obeyed instantly.

In the bay window Mrs. Bent sat and watched. She could not have looked at them with anything but pleasure. Eleanor was so young, so pretty. There was no mother in Waltonville who would not have been pleased to see her daughter playing duets with Richard Lister.

But a shadow had settled on Mrs. Bent's face. The look which had transfigured her changed to a look of anxiety and trouble. She had years ago made wise plans for her life and Eleanor's—they had begun to seem now not wise, but insane. They were wicked, because they were made in one of the rages into which she had fallen, like her father, in her youth; they were stupid, because they had taken no account of the future; and they were selfish, because they had taken no account of anything but her own fury.

When Dr. Green drove by in his buggy, Mrs. Bent laid her hand with a gesture which was almost melodramatic across her heart, and stared after him, as though the sight of him had for an instant illuminated her despair. In another instant, however, the shadow returned to her face and she bent over her sewing.

Dr. Green drove by, returned and passed again, drove a mile or two into the country and passed the fourth time. He thought that Eleanor was playing, and he said, "Good for her!" He took a great deal of credit to himself for Eleanor.

The afternoon light softened, shadows began to spread over the little garden. When Richard rose to go, Mrs. Bent had vanished, and the two young people looked at each other, startled and a little bewildered, trying to hide their confusion. Eleanor did not say "Come back," nor did Richard ask whether he might come again, but the volume was left open on the piano.