ise; for it was the fashion for every musical gift among the girls to
be cultivated, and every girl played or sang more or less, some of them
very well. But Cousin Fanny was not only this. She had a way of playing
that used to make the old piano sound different from itself; and her
voice was almost the sweetest I ever heard except one or two on the
stage. It was particularly sweet in the evenings, when she sat down at
the piano and played. She would not always do it; she either felt "not
in the mood", or "not sympathetic", or some such thing. None of the
others were that way; the rest could play just as well in the glare of
day as in the twilight, and before one person as another; it was, we all
knew, just one of Cousin Fanny's old-maid crotchets. When she sat down
at the piano and played, her fussiness was all forgotten; her first
notes used to be recognized through the house, and people used to stop
what they were doing, and come in. Even the children would leave off
playing, and come straggling in, tiptoeing as they crossed the floor.
Some of the other performers used to play a great deal louder, but we
never tiptoed when they played. Cousin Fanny would sit at the piano
looking either up or right straight ahead of her, or often with her eyes
closed (she never looked at the keys), and the sound used to rise from
under her long, thin fingers, sometimes rushing and pouring forth like a
deep roar, sometimes ringing out clear like a band of bugles, making the
hair move on the head and giving strange tinglings down the back. Then
we boys wanted to go forth in the world on fiery, black chargers, like
the olden knights, and fight giants and rescue beautiful ladies and poor
women. Then again, with her eyes shut, the sound would almost die away,
and her fingers would move softly and lingeringly as if they loved the
touch of the keys, and hated to leave them; and the sound would come
from away far off, and everything would grow quiet and subdued, and the
perfume of the roses out of doors would steal in on the air, and the
soft breezes would stir the trees, and we were all in love, and wanted
to see somebody that we didn't see. And Cousin Fanny was not herself any
longer, but we imagined some one else was there. Sometimes she suddenly
began to sing (she sang old songs, English or French); her voice might
be weak (it all depended on her whims; SHE said, on her health), in
that case she always stopped and left the piano; or it might