“Excellent.  Polly Dudley has a sweet voice, too.  I hope she will sing before the evening is over.  And Doodles is wonderful!  Have you ever heard him?”

“No.  He told me he was in the choir at St. Bartholomew’s.”

“There he comes!  Oh, Polly is to play for him!”

A very sympathetic accompanist was Polly.  Juanita Sterling listened in surprise and wonder.  How could such a child do so well!

  “Young Davie was the brawest lad
    In a’ the Lairnie Glen,
  An’ Jennie was the bonniest lass
    That e’er stole hearts o’ men;
  But Davie was a cotter’s lad,
    A lad o’ low degree,
  An’ Jennie, bonnie, sonsie lass,
    A highborn lass was she.”

Applause burst upon the hush that hung on the last note.  It was insistent—­it would not be denied.  Doodles must sing again.

“He is a marvel!” Nelson Randolph spoke it softly, as the young singer returned to the piano.

He gave the second verse of the song, which before he had omitted, and then sang the dainty little love song,—­

  “Dusk, and the shadows falling
    O’er land and sea;
  Somewhere a voice is calling,
    Calling for me!”

Yet even that did not satisfy his audience.  So he returned once more and gave in an irresistibly rollicking way a song in Yankee dialect, the refrain to which,—­

  “Oh, my boy Jonathan is jest as good as gold! 
  An’ he always fills the wood-box ‘ithout bein’ told!”—­

tagging as it did the various topics of the old farmer’s discourse upon his son, never failed to bring laughter from his hearers.

At the end the applause was long and urgent; but Doodles had run away, and would not come back.

Polly slipped up to Miss Sterling.

“Will you play for us now?—­please, Miss Nita!” seeing a refusal in the eyes that met her own.

“I am not in practice.  I should hate to break down before all these people,” she smiled.

“There isn’t one mite of danger!” Polly asserted confidently.  “Do come, Miss Nita!  Mr. Randolph, I wish you’d coax her to come!  She can play magnificently!”

“Polly!”

“She can!” Polly addressed the president.

“I don’t doubt it,” Nelson Randolph declared, “and I should be delighted to hear her.”

“You wouldn’t be delighted at all,” Miss Sterling laughed.  “You would want to stop me long before I had finished one page.  My fingers would be lost in no time.”

He dissented with courtliness, and Polly wheedled until Doodles and Blue came to add their urging to hers; but in the end they had to let Miss Sterling have her way, which was to remain outside of the entertaining circle.

So Polly sang, “Such a li’l’ fellow,” and “Daisytown Gossip.”  Then Mrs. Winslow Teed was beguiled into singing the old song of “The Beggar Girl,” and if her voice were a bit uncertain, on the whole it was sweet and received well-earned applause.