Mr. Jelnik’s presence had the effect of lightening The Author’s gloom.  His eyes brightened, his dejection changed into alertness, and there began that subtle game of under-the-surface thrust and parry that seemed inevitable when the two met.  Mr. Westmacote listened with quiet enjoyment.  His dinner was to his taste, Hynds House more than came up to his expectations, Alicia was Cinderella after the fairy’s wand had passed over her, I had ceased to be a mere person and become a personage; and he found here such men as Doctor Geddes, The Author, and Nicholas Jelnik.  The Head smiled at his wife, and was at peace with the world.

Miss Emmeline had already discovered the Lowestoft and Spode pieces in our built-in cupboards; that there were two perfect apostle jugs in the cabinet in the hall:  that our Chelsea figures were lovelier than any she had heretofore seen; and that Hynds House, in which everything was genuine, had an atmosphere that appealed to her soul, or maybe matched her clear-green aura.  Anyhow, the house reached out for Miss Emmeline as with hands and laid its spell upon her enduringly.

She sat beside me, with Alicia’s pet album of Confederate generals on her knees.

“I never thought I’d have a sentimental regard for rebels,” she confessed.  “But, oh, they were gallant and romantic figures, when one looks at their old photographs here in Hynds House.  I am Massachusetts to the bone, but I don’t want to hear ’Marching through Georgia’ while I’m here!”

Mr. Jelnik, overhearing her, laughed.  “Perhaps I may find for you something more in keeping with Hynds House,” he said, and sauntered over to the old piano.  Unexpectedly it came to life.  And he began to sing: 

It was the silent, solemn hour
When night and morning meet,
In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,
And stood at William’s feet. 
Her face was like an April morn
Clad in a wintry cloud: 
And clay-cold was her lily hand,
That held her sable shroud.

The Author shaded his eyes with his hand, his gaze riveted upon the singer.  Alicia leaned forward, lips parted, face like an uplifted flower, eyes large with wonder and delight.  The Confederate generals slid from Miss Emmeline’s lap and lay face downward, forgotten.  Westmacote’s faded little wife, who had no children, crept closer to her big husband; and gently, unobtrusively, he reached out and took her hand in his warm grasp.

Why did you promise love to me
And not that promise keep? 
Why did you swear mine eyes were bright,
Yet leave those eyes to weep? 
Why did you say my face was fair,
And yet that face forsake? 
How could you win my virgin heart,
Yet leave that heart to break?

I am sure there is no lovelier and more touching ballad in all our English treasury than that sad, simple, and most beautiful old song.  And he had set it to an air as simple and as perfect as its own words, an old-world air that suited it and his rich and flexible voice.