re for.

Then the professor began to play. Indifferently at first after the
manner of his kind, clever gymnastics to limber up his fingers perhaps,
and perhaps to show how limber they are; runs and trills, brilliant
execution, one hand after the other in mad pursuit, crossing over, back
again, up and down in the vain endeavour to come up with the other
hand; crescendo, diminuendo, trills again!

Danny yawned widely.

"When's he goin' to begin?" he asked, sleepily.

Mrs. Francis watched Danny eagerly. The musical sense was liable to
wake up any minute. But it would have to hurry, for Daniel Mulcahey was
liable to go to sleep any minute.

Pearl was disgusted with the professor and her thoughts fell into
vulgar baseball slang:

"Playin' to the grand stand, ain't ye? instead o' gettin' down to work.
That'll do for ketch and toss. Play the game! Deliver the goods!"

Then the professor began the full arm chords with sudden fury, writhing
upon the stool as he struck the angry notes from the piano. Pearl's
indignation ran high.

"He's lost his head--he's up in the air!" she shouted, but the words
were lost in the clang of musical discords.

But wait! Pearl sat still and listened. There was something doing. It
was a Welsh rhapsodie that he was playing. It was all there--the
mountains and the rivers, and the towering cliffs with glimpses of the
sea where waves foam on the rocks, and sea-fowl wheel and scream in the
wind, and then a bit of homely melody as the country folk drive home in
the moonlight, singing as only the Welsh can sing, the songs of the
heart; songs of love and home, songs of death and sorrowing, that stab
with sudden sweetness. A child cries somewhere in the dark, cries for
his mother who will come no more. Then a burst of patriotic fire, as
the people fling defiance at the conquering foe, and hold the mountain
passes till the last man falls. But the glory of the fight and the
march of many feet trail off into a wailing chant--the death song of
the brave men who have died. The widow mourns, and the little children
weep comfortless in their mountain home, and the wind rushes through
the forest, and the river foams furiously down the mountain, falling in
billows of lace over the rocks, and the sun shines over all, cold and
pitiless.

"Why, Pearlie Watson, what are you crying for?" Mrs. Francis whispered
severely. Pearl's sobs had disturbed her. Danny lay asleep on Pearl's
knees, and her tears fell fast