The lady signified assent by an inclination of the head.

“My name’s Joe Bright,” continued he.  “No relation of John Bright, the bright Englishman.  Wish I was.  I come from Northampton, ma’am.  The keeper of the Mansion House told me you wanted to get board there in some private family next summer; and I called to tell you that I can let you have half of my house, furnished or not, just as you like.  As I’m plain Joe Bright the blacksmith, of course you won’t find lace and damask, and such things as you have here.”

“All we wish for,” rejoined Mrs. Delano, “is healthy air and wholesome food for the children.”

“Plenty of both, ma’am,” replied the blacksmith.  “And I guess you’ll like my wife.  She ain’t one of the kind that raises a great dust when she sweeps.  She’s a still sort of body; but she knows a deal more than she tells for.”

After a description of the accommodations he had to offer, and a promise from Mrs. Delano to inform him of her decision in a few days, he rose to go.  But he stood, hat in hand, looking wistfully toward the piano.  “Would it be too great a liberty, ma’am, to ask which of you ladies plays?” said he.

“I seldom play,” rejoined Mrs. Delano, “because my daughter, Mrs. Blumenthal, plays so much better.”

Turning toward Flora, he said, “I suppose it would be too much trouble to play me a tune?”

“Certainty not,” she replied; and, seating herself at the piano, she dashed off, with voice and instrument, “The Campbells are coming, Oho!  Oho!”

“By George!” exclaimed the blacksmith.  “You was born to it, ma’am; that’s plain enough.  Well, it was just so with me.  I took to music as a Newfoundland pup takes to the water.  When my brother Sam and I were boys, we were let out to work for a blacksmith.  We wanted a fiddle dreadfully; but we were too poor to buy one; and we couldn’t have got much time to play on’t if we had had one, for our boss watched us as a weasel watches mice.  But we were bent on getting music somehow.  The boss always had plenty of iron links of all sizes, hanging in a row, ready to be made into chains when wanted.  One day, I happened to hit one of the links with a piece of iron I had in my hand.  ’By George!  Sam,’ said I, ‘that was Do.’  ‘Strike again,’ says he.  ’Blow!  Sam, blow!’ said I. I was afraid the boss would come in and find the iron cooling in the fire.  So he kept blowing away, and I struck the link again.  ‘That’s Do, just as plain as my name’s Sam,’ said he.  A few days after, I said, ‘By George!  Sam, I’ve found Sol.’  ‘So you have,’ said he.  ‘Now let me try.  Blow, Joe, blow!’ Sam, he found Re and La.  And in the course of two months we got so we could play Old Hundred.  I don’t pretend to say we could do it as glib as you run over the ivory, ma’am; but it was Old Hundred, and no mistake.  And we played Yankee Doodle, first rate.  We called our instrument the Harmolinks; and we enjoyed it all the more because it was our own invention.  I tell you what, ma’am, there’s music hid away in everything, only we don’t know how to bring it out.”