I have never
listened to it since she died. Your mother played beautifully, children;
she played and she sang. I liked her songs; I hate the twaddle of the
present day. Now I am returning to my Virgil. My renderings of the
original text become more and more full of light. I shall secure a vast
reputation. Music! I hate music. Don't disturb me, any of you."

When Mr. Dale reached his study he sank into his accustomed chair. His
lamp was already lit; it burned brightly, for Miss Tredgold herself
trimmed it each morning. His piles of books of reference lay in confusion
by his side. An open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen.
Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination of his studies;
the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be
impervious then to this present century, to his present life, to his
children, to the home in which he lived.

"I could have sworn," he muttered to himself, "that Alice had come back.
As Sophia stood in the twilight I should scarcely have known them apart.
She is not Alice. Alice was the only woman I ever loved--the only woman I
could tolerate in my house. My children, my girls, are none of them women
yet, thank the Almighty. When they are they will have to go. I could not
stand any other woman but Alice to live always in the house. But now to
forget her. This knotty point must be cleared up before I go to bed."

The doors of the ancient world were slowly opening. But before they could
shut Mr. Dale within their portals there came a sound that caused the
scholar to start. The soft strains of music entered through the door
which Verena had on purpose left open. The music was sweet and yet
masterly. It came with a merry sound and a certain quick rhythm that
seemed to awaken the echoes of the house. Impossible as it may appear,
Mr. Dale forgot the ancient classics and the dim world of the past. He
lay back in his chair; his lips moved; he beat time with his knuckles on
the arms of his chair; and with his feet on the floor. So perfect was his
ear that the faintest wrong note, or harmony out of tune, would be
detected by him. The least jarring sound would cause him agony. But there
was no jarring note; the melody was correct; the time was perfect.

"I might have known that Alice----" he began; but then he remembered that
Alice had never played exactly like that, and he ceased to think of her,
or of any woman, and became absorbed in those ringing notes