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'77 Lavinia came III.
Copyright, 1908, by David C
. Cook Publishing Company.
VOL. VII. No. 11. -:;,"E‘;';i’I54;“3” DAVID C. COOK PUBLISHING C0., ELGIN, ILLINOIS, AND 36 WAsIIINo'roN S1,, CHICAGO. March 14, 1903.
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E head of her class. But something was gone ins were singing outside her window.
from her, too. She grew a little hard. Thousands of them, hundreds. Finally
-3 <'",.2E,s',“- .9 ‘
'-”’fl%I7Xx7W’J
The front door opened and closed gently.
Mrs. Rivenburg winced. If only it had
been slammed! Soft footsteps Went by
the sitting-room door’and up the stairs.
A door above opened and closed quietly,
then everything was still.
“ Mother!" ‘lsther looked at her mother
with wide, appealing eyes.
A faint smiled quivcred around Mrs.
Rivcnburg's mouth, and then she laughed,
a trifle unsteadily. They were so tragic,
they two. They had been sitting here for
an hour, waiting. And now, without a
word, they knew.
' Presently the door above opened and
swift steps came down the stairs. -
“I wonder what he told her?" Ikther
said breathlessly, and then with a tighten-
ing of her hands. “I detest him!’ I do!
I detest and despise him!" "
“IIush!“ Mrs. Rivenburg held up her
hand warningiy, The door openedpand
' ‘ She was q‘uit'e' composed,
though a little pale. She looked from her
mother to her sister, inquiringly. ‘
“ Well?" asked Mrs. Ilivenburg faintly.
She knew. Ilad not the gently-closed door
told the story‘!
Lavinia struck an attitude-the atti-
tude of. the famous French violinist, to
whom she had gone for axerdict as to her
musical ability. She thrust forward her
head, turtle fashion, and beat the air with
an imaginary violin bow. “Mees," she-
cried. imitating the Frenchman's broken
English, “it ecs E-mpossible. You have
ze talent. Yes; ze parlor talent. Zee
little, small music, it cos for you. Yes.
But not ze grand harmonies. Zhey, for
you, zhey ' are E-mpossible.”
They all laughed at the clever imitation.
Laughed with sore hearts, to be sure. It
was like Lavinia to turn her disappoint-
ment into a joke; like the Rivenburgs, to
laugh and not to cry. -
Mrs. Rivenburg leaned forward with
outstretched hands. “ Where is your vio-
lin, daughter?"
“I have put it away," said Lavinia cold-
ly, “ forever." A white line came around
her hard set lips. Mrs. Rirenburg‘s eyes
tilled with tears; Esther leaned over the
music she -was copying. It was so hard,
so cruelly hard, for only three months ago
Esther had been assured that her ability
as a pianist was more than the “parlor
talent." And Lavinia had failed!
Winter passed slowly to the Rivenburgs.
They had never before realized what
Lavinia‘s violin had been to them. They
were not demonstrative, the Rivenburgs.
They hid their feelings deeply, and now it
seemed to them that Lavinia's violin had
been, in a way, the family voice, and that
they had lost the power of utterance. It
had laughed and wept. It had cheered
them on dreary evenings. and on dull days
it had roused them like the call of a bugle.
Esther began to slip backward steadily
in her music. Something was gone from
it. “ It is the violin," she said one day,
wonderingly, to her mother: “Lavinia
kept me up to the mark." And then with
a start of surprise, "Why, we're all slip-
l)o you know. I believe she
kept us all up-" I ' ,
.Lavinia threw herself into her school
work as she had never done before. She
was slowly but surely creeping up to the
She was not always kind in her upward
progress. Not quite the gay, sweet-
natured Lavinia Rivenburg of a year ago.
Without realizing it, her ideals were slip-
ping back a tride, her spirit was not quite
up to the mark.
It was the first warm evening of spring.
The girls had gone for a walk, leaving their
father and mother in the sitting-room.
was here, just at dusk, that Lavinia used
to come to play the dear old songs her
father loved, and now, as day began to
fade, he longed for them. It seemed to
him that the echoes were still ringing in
the walls.
“ ‘ Oh. for the touch of a vanished handfql‘
he quoted, “ ‘ and the sound of a voice that
is still.’ "
“A voice that is still!" Mrs. Riven-
burg’s eyes filled. A voice, sweet, loving,
caressingSthat was what the violin had
oen. It was the voice of their undernou-
ive daughter, speaking through the
violin to them, telling her highest, noblest
thoughts.
Mr. Rivenburg opened the window and
leaned out. "he girls came in with ex-
clamations about the heat. Then they four
sat for a time in silence. Suddenly
through the open window they heard the
Vesper song of a robiIi,'and'with"one‘wc-'
cord they cried, “ It’s spring. ’
“ You can talk to me about your night'-
ingales and skylarks, and-” Mr. Riven-
burg paused. ‘;
“Tree toads?” suggested Lavinia.
“ Yes, tree toads. I've heard"cm all.
>-4
n
gt‘
when she had struggled back to wakeful-
ness, she found it was really only one,
swaying on the branch of the cherry tree.
Just a common, everyday robin, but, oh.
what a flood of melody was pouring from
his throat!
“Just an everyday robin,” she mused
as she stood by the window, ready for
breakfast. It was hard to be just that:
so hard to have just “ze parlor talent.”
She looked out and watched the people
passing in the street below. There was
Marion Davis going to work. Marion had
no home nor mother: there, looking list-
lussly from his sick-room window, was Jack
Legrand, rich to be sure, but crippled and
fatherless. There were the two Taylor
boys going around to the hospital, anxious
to know if their mother had passed a good
night.
tuddenly Lavinia remembered how once,
when she was very small, she cried because
she couldn’t have a red purasol and a Shet-
land pony, new shoes and a toy balloon,
a “ truly " watch and a new dolly, all at
once, and her father had said in his funny,
whimsical way, “ You mustn't expect that
all the gold lace in life will be sewed on
your dress, dear."
But wasn't that just what she hat‘ been
exp'EEtiif,,-'2” How biavc ail of those people
in the streets were! They went on in
spite of heartaehes, and did their work
in the world. 'hat a coward she had
been! She had not only expected all the
gold lace to be sewed on her dress, but she
had been fostering a growing resentment in
They're fine and all that, I suppose. But
the song that goes Y
a n d V
her heart because the particular, shiny bit
‘ she must longed
for, had been de-
down deeper '“"=‘xx.xv-"1
closer to everyone’s nied her. She had
heart, I believe, is actually felt that
just that common, she was being
ordinary song of the cheated out of
everyday robin." V something rightful-
“ II a r k to the ly hers.-
patriot!” laughed Suddenly s h 2
Esther. “You heard took up her violin,
nightingalcs abroad, tuning it as best
and don’t like them
because they aren't -
“No such thing!
But a nightingale or
8 y.
she could, cuddling
it’ lovingly ‘under
her chin.. It was
“Tree toad?” it had taken cold
someone again sng- during its impris-
gested. V ' onment, but La-
“Yes, or a tree vinia didn't care
toad, must have con- .
ditions just right, or‘
he won't sing. He
sits hack and sulks.
The robin is always
on hand. Ie‘ al-
ways cheerful. He
hasn‘t a great deal
to give, perhaps. but
he gives it all; he
gives it every day,
girls, with a gurg-
l i n g , overiiowing ‘
happiness. And that’s what counts. He
hasn't much of a gift, just ‘ze parlor tal-
eat.’ Lavinia, but he uses what he has."
Lavinia went upstairs with a flush on
her face. So father-’s little homily had
been for her! If father only knew! She
took down her violin from the high shelf,
opened. the case, and with quivering tin-
gers touched the loose strings.
“Oh, I can't! I can‘tl” she cried. A
lenr splashed down on the shining wood.
But she did not put the violin away again.
It lay all night on her table.
A TELR si'I.asIII:D D
W
ta flourish to the
robin outside.
“We‘re two of a
kind," she cried.
“ We have just ‘ze
parlor talent.’ "
' She went out
through the hall
p l a y i n 1:
"‘ R o bin Adair."
“ Here's a robin ’at
' ' ' dares,” she called
down gayly over the balusters; and the fam-
ily gathered in the dining-room - below,
looked at each other with glad faces and
cried with one accord: “ It's spring!"
....m.
O'iV'.‘l ON THE SIIIXIAG
00D.
0 heart, be kind and true
While thou dost beat;
0 hands, he swift to do;
0 lips, be sweet.
elllary Francrr Butts.
..:.j
“ Life is not A holldav. but an education.
9 W33 .b'“'n9 back “Om UJ9‘lc'-Ind 0f and the one eternal les. n for us all is how
sleep on billrms of song.
Millions of rob- tmter we can live.‘ -
“We called her that at first," said the girl
who had been spending the summer In Eng-
land, “because we didn't know her name. A!-
Iervrards we kept on doing so because it
sounded more as if she belonged to us.
“ You see,“ the girl continued, with bright-
ening eyes, “she really was a kind of dis-
covery of ours. May tell you about hart’.
“It was on the side of Latrlgg that we
found her, on one of our drst walks after
we reached the Lake Country, - We had
strolled up‘there without thinking much about
where we were going, but just rambling on
and on because there was always something
so beautiful just ahead that we couldn't quite
Inake up our minds to turn back, until all
t once it occurred to us that we must have-
ll
come miles from heswick. Where lea would
presently be waiting for us. Now, in Eng-
land you always want tea when it is tea-
time, so that was rather a serious matter.
But just as we were beginning to realize how
dreadfully hungry and thirsty we were,.we
saw the little woman coming along the moun-
tain road behind us.
“She was small and slight,
poifrly yzressled.
servant in some gcntleInun‘s family. Ilelen
stepped toward her and asked her if she
could tell us the shortest way back to Kes-
lck.
“‘To Keswlck? It is rather a long dis-
tance by the road in either direction. But ‘e
she looked at us-with a little shy hesltatlon-
‘if you wouldn't mind coming a few rods
further with me, I will show you a much
shorter way. And I think you will tind it
a very beautiful walk. Most strangers do
not see '
"Well, I was sure I heard Ilclcn give a
little gasp, and Grace and were openly
staring. Even Miss Warren and Gladys looked
it was something about her voice
and her way of speaking. I can hardly
describe it to you. But it was so different
from what we expected. It sounded so-so
cultured! ‘
“‘We are newcomers,‘ one of us began to
explain; and she gave us a little modest,
understanding smile.
,“‘ a you have much to enjoy, especially
If you are lovers of Wordsworth.‘
‘ That quite took our breath, and I'm afraid
and quite
i
one or two of us blushed to think how little.
we really knew about the Lake Poets. But
without seeming to notice our surprise, or to
‘think of there being anything unusual about.
on talking.
herself, the little woman went
always in the same modest way, but giving
us more valuable firsthand information and
‘ points’ about the things we should see and
do than any number of guide-books and con-
ductors put together. I wish you could have
heard her naming one mountain and valley
after another for us, and telling us the most
Interesting stories and traditions about them.
You would have thought she had actually
known Wordsworth and Southey, from her
delicious anecdotes about them and the-the
intimate way in which she quoted bits of their
poetry.
"But really the most wonderful thing of
all was her own exquisitely modulated voice
and the delicate correctness of her language.
llclcn and Gladys are college girls. and Miss
Warren-you know what Miss Warren lsl
We have all had 'adVantnges.' Ilut not one
of us could talk like that little woman. It
was the clearest ‘stream of English‘ unde-
illed I ever heard. And the others said the
same thing. Stlltedl Not the least bit in
the world! Just simple and tine and perfect.
“Well, it was so pleasant that we even
forgot about ten! In that little time the
poets seemed to be right there with us. And
i can't tell you how much more real and In-
teresting they have been to us ever since.
And besides this, the little woman told us a
lot of things about Keswlck-about the night
school, and the readini:'clubs, and the art
‘ ‘ , 1
y
I
We ‘tank her for an-under-v