“What delicious preserves,” said Eloise.  “May I have some more, please?  Where do you get them?”

“I make them,” answered Miriam, the dull red rising in her cheeks.  She had not been entirely disinterested when she climbed up on a chair and took down some of her choicest fruit from the highest shelf of the store-room.

“Do you—­” A look from Barbara stopped the unlucky speech.  “Do you find it difficult?” asked Eloise, instantly mistress of the situation.  “I should so love to make some for myself.”

“Miriam will be glad to teach you,” put in Ambrose North.  “She likes to do it because she can do it so well.”

The red grew deeper in Miriam’s lined face, for every word of praise from him was food to her hungry soul.  She would gladly have laid down her life for him, even though she hated herself for feeling as she did.

[Sidenote:  An Hour of Song]

Afterward, while Miriam was clearing off the table, Eloise went to the piano without being asked, and sang to them for more than an hour.  She chose folk-songs and tender melodies—­little songs made of tears and laughter, and the simple ballads that never grow old.  She had a deep, vibrant contralto voice of splendid range and volume; she sang with rare sympathy, and every word could be clearly understood.

“Don’t stop,” pleaded Barbara, when she paused and ran her fingers lightly over the keys.

“I don’t want to impose upon your good-nature,” she returned, “but I love to sing.”

“And we love to have you,” said North.  “I think, Barbara, we must get a new piano.”

“I wouldn’t,” answered Eloise, before Barbara could speak.  “The years improve wine and violins and friendship, so why not a piano?” Without waiting for his reply, she began to sing, with exquisite tenderness: 

“Sometimes between long shadows on the grass
The little truant waves of sunlight pass;
Mine eyes grow dim with tenderness the while,
Thinking I see thee, thinking I see thee smile.

“And sometimes in the twilight gloom apart
The tall trees whisper, whisper heart to heart;
From my fond lips the eager answers fall,
Thinking I hear thee, thinking I hear thee call.”

“Yes,” said Ambrose North, unsteadily, as the last chord died away, “I know.  You can call and call, but nothing ever comes back to you.”  The tears streamed over his blind face as he rose and went out of the room.

“What have I done?” asked Eloise.  “Oh, what have I done?”

“Nothing,” sighed Barbara.  “My mother has been dead for twenty-one years, but my father never forgets.  She was only a girl when she died—­like me.”

“I’m so sorry.  Why didn’t you tell me before, so I could have chosen jolly, happy things?”

“That wouldn’t keep him from grieving—­nothing can, so don’t be troubled about it.”

Eloise turned back to the piano and sang two or three rollicking, laughing melodies that set Barbara’s one foot to tapping on the floor, but the old man did not come back.