and shrivelled for the whole summer, for their whole leafy lives. Poor trees! Poor leaves! . . .
The stubborn fingers went on conscientiously, tapping out the scales and constantly playing that same wrong note with almost comical persistency: ting! The front-door bell was constantly going ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling! All those noises—the wind: whew, boo! The scales: ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta; ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta. The front-door bell: ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling! The barrel-organs in the street, two going at the same time. The colours indoors: the colours of the wall-paper and curtains and carpet, screeching like parrots. The cries of the costermongers outside: “Strawberrees! . . . Fine strawberrees!” The rattle of the greengrocers’ carts, clattering over the noisy cobble-stones—all these noises rang out together and it was as though the wind defined and accentuated each individual sound, blowing away a mist from each sound, leaving only the rough, resonant kernel of each sound to ring out against the glittering plate-glass windows, along the goutily-creaking flagstaffs, into this room, where the parrot-colours jabbered aloud. . . .
It blew and rang and screeched and jabbered; and the girl with her continual false note—ting!—heard none of it, but thought only, “Oh, those poor trees! Oh, those poor leaves!” in her gentle little, hypersensitive soul. Used as she was to the wind, the noises and the colours, she saw nothing but the trees, heard nothing but the rustling of the leaves, nor heard her own persistent little false note: ting!
