Once she
went to the little cottage piano that was in the corner of the hall
and began to play. It was a tinkly, reedy instrument, for none of
that household had any turn for music. Nancy herself could play a
few simple songs, and she found herself playing. She had been
sitting on the window seat, looking out on the fading day. Leonora
had gone to pay some calls; Edward was looking after some
planting up in the new spinney. Thus she found herself playing on
the old piano. She did not know how she came to be doing it. A
silly lilting wavering tune came from before her in the dusk--a tune
in which major notes with their cheerful insistence wavered and
melted into minor sounds, as, beneath a bridge, the high lights on
dark waters melt and waver and disappear into black depths. Well,
it was a silly old tune. . . .
It goes with the words--they are about a willow tree, I think: Thou
art to all lost loves the best The only true plant found.
--That sort of thing. It is Herrick, I believe, and the music with the
reedy, irregular, lilting sound that goes with Herrick, And it was
dusk; the heavy, hewn, dark pillars that supported the gallery were
like mourning presences; the fire had sunk to nothing--a mere
glow amongst white ashes, .
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