The tears come still into Mrs. Callender’s eyes when she speaks of Miss Kirkcaldie’s music. “Never,” she says, “did I hear anything like it. Right through you it went, deep down into your very marrow. Many’s the time I’ve gone an’ crept outside that door, an’ stayed there shiverin’ with the cold—Roger’d be safe in bed—and filled me with the listening till my heart’s been fit to break for the grief or glory, or soldierin’ or softness, whichever it might be. There! stood there like a silly I have, with the tears a-runnin’ down, an’ yet all the while as happy! Well, there! Someway I used to seem to kind o’ wake up, if you understand, when Miss Kirkcaldie made her music. Sour old lemon that she was, too, otherwise!”
It is good to think of Mrs. Callender, whose days were else little beyond butter-making, poultry-feeding, and housework, coming into her rightful kingdom of consciousness, as she sobbed and shivered out there in the passage. And it is good, too, to think of that music, like an angel entertained in secret and guarded with jealous pains from bestowing the blessing of its presence upon uninvited guests, yet, true to its heavenly nature, winging thus freely forth and ministering to this refreshed and thankful recipient. But what of the music-maker—the exclusive, haughty host? Nay, poor, proud, solitary soul, why should we give you grudge for grudge, or bitterly estimate your bitterness? Is it so beautiful a thing to condemn where we do not understand? Who knows what stress—of grief, or guilt it may be, of love denied, ambition thwarted, loss sustained (pain of some sort certainly it must have been, to teach your soul such passionate expression)—had
