Why, I asked myself, was this woman so short even of German friends
as to be condemned to a seamstress's penury? And my best guess was to lay
it to the zeal of her old-fashioned--and yet not merely old-fashioned-
wifehood, which could accept no friendship that did not unqualifiedly
accept him; and he?--Goodness!
When she ceased neither listener spoke; the tears were in our throats. She
bent her head slightly over the keys, and said, "I like to sing you
anusser." We accepted eagerly, and she sang again. There was nothing of
personal application in either song, yet now, near the end, where there
was a purposed silence in the melody, the silence hung on and on until it
was clear she was struggling with herself; but again the strain arose
without a tremor, and so she finished. "Oh, no, no," she replied, to our
solicitation, with the grateful emphasis of one who declines a third
glass, "se sooneh I stop, se betteh for ever'body," meaning specially
herself, I fancy, speaking, as she rose, in a tone of such happy decision,
and yet so melodiously, that two or three strings in the piano replied.
Her hostess took her hands and said there was one thing she could and
must do; she and her husband must spend the night with us.
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