He thought that possibly the consciousness of her
defect accounted for this. Yet she did not seem
sensitive about her dumbness and made frequent casual
references to it in her written remarks. Or
perhaps it was the shadow on her birth. Yet she
was so innocent that it seemed unlikely she could
realize or understand the existence of such a shadow.
Eric finally decided that it was merely the rather
morbid shrinking of a sensitive child who had been
brought up in an unwholesome and unnatural way.
At last the lengthening shadows warned him that it
was time to go.
“You won’t forget to come to-morrow evening
and play for me,” he said, rising reluctantly.
She answered by a quick little shake of her sleek,
dark head, and a smile that was eloquent. He
watched her as she walked across the orchard,
“With the moon’s
beauty and the moon’s soft pace,”
and along the wild cherry lane. At the corner
of the firs she paused and waved her hand to him before
turning it.
When Eric reached home old Robert Williamson was having
a lunch of bread and milk in the kitchen. He
looked up, with a friendly grin, as Eric strode in,
whistling.
“Been having a walk, Master?” he queried.
“Yes,” said Eric.
Unconsciously and involuntarily he infused so much
triumph into the simple monosyllable that even old
Robert felt it. Mrs. Williamson, who was cutting
bread at the end of the table, laid down her knife
and loaf, and looked at the young man with a softly
troubled expression in her eyes. She wondered
if he had been back to the Connors orchard—and
if he could have seen Kilmeny Gordon again.
“You didn’t discover a gold mine, I s’pose?”
said old Robert dryly. “You look as if
you might have.”
When Eric went to the old Connors orchard the next
evening he found Kilmeny waiting for him on the bench
under the white lilac tree, with the violin in her
lap. As soon as she saw him she caught it up
and began to play an airy delicate little melody that
sounded like the laughter of daisies.
When it was finished she dropped her bow, and looked
up at him with flushed cheeks and questioning eyes.
“What did that say to you?” she wrote.
“It said something like this,” answered
Eric, falling into her humour smilingly. “Welcome,
my friend. It is a very beautiful evening.
The sky is so blue and the apple blossoms so sweet.
The wind and I have been here alone together and the
wind is a good companion, but still I am glad to see
you. It is an evening on which it is good to
be alive and to wander in an orchard that is fine
and white. Welcome, my friend.”
She clapped her hands, looking like a pleased child.
