Melody | Page 4

much good may it do you.'"
"Oh, Doctor," cried Melody, shrinking as if the words had been addressed to her, "how could you say that? But you don't think--you don't think Ned will really be blind?" The child had grown very pale, and she leaned over the gate with clasped hands, in painful suspense.
"No, I don't," replied the doctor. "I think he will come out all right; no thanks to his mother if he does. But it was necessary to frighten the woman, Melody, for fright is the only thing that makes an impression on a fool. Now, I want you to run down there, like a good child; that is, if your aunts can spare you. Run down and comfort the little fellow, who has been badly scared by the clack of tongues and the smarting of the tobacco-juice. Imbeciles! cods' heads! scooped-out pumpkins!" exclaimed the doctor, in a sudden frenzy. "A--I don't mean that. Comfort him up, child, and sing to him and tell him about Jack-and-the-Beanstalk. You'll soon bring him round, I'll warrant. But stop," he added, as the child, after touching Miss Vesta's hand lightly, and making and receiving I know not what silent communication, turned toward the house,--"stop a moment, Melody. My friend Dr. Anthony here is very fond of music, and he would like to hear you sing just one song. Are you in singing trim this morning?"
The child laughed. "I can always sing, of course," she said simply. "What song would you like, Doctor?"
"Oh, the best," said Dr. Brown. "Give us 'Annie Laurie.'"
The child sat down on a great stone that stood beside the gate. It was just under the white lilac-bush, and the white clusters bent lovingly down over her, and seemed to murmur with pleasure as the wind swept them lightly to and fro. Miss Vesta said something about her bread, and gave an uneasy glance toward the house, but she did not go in; the window was open, and Rejoice could hear; and after all, bread was not worth so much as "Annie Laurie." Melody folded her hands lightly on her lap, and sang.
Dr. Brown thought "Annie Laurie" the most beautiful song in the world; certainly it is one of the best beloved. Ever since it was first written and sung (who knows just when that was? "Anonymous" is the legend that stands in the song-books beside this familiar title. We do not know the man's name, cannot visit the place where he wrote and sang, and made music for all coming generations of English-speaking people; can only think of him as a kind friend, a man of heart and genius as surely as if his name stood at the head of unnumbered symphonies and fugues),--ever since it was first sung, I say, men and women and children have loved this song. We hear of its being sung by camp-fires, on ships at sea, at gay parties of pleasure. Was it not at the siege of Lucknow that it floated like a breath from home through the city hell-beset, and brought cheer and hope and comfort to all who heard it? The cotter's wife croons it over her sleeping baby; the lover sings it to his sweetheart; the child runs, carolling it, through the summer fields; finally, some world-honored prima-donna, some Patti or Nilsson, sings it as the final touch of perfection to a great feast of music, and hearts swell and eyes overflow to find that the nursery song of our childhood is a world-song, immortal in freshness and beauty. But I am apt to think that no lover, no tender mother, no splendid Italian or noble Swede, could sing "Annie Laurie" as Melody sang it. Sitting there in her simple cotton dress, her head thrown slightly back, her hands folded, her eyes fixed in their unchanging calm, she made a picture that the stranger never forgot. He started as the first notes of her voice stole forth, and hung quivering on the air,--
"Maxwellton braes are bonnie, Where early fa's the dew."
What wonder was this? Dr. Anthony had come prepared to hear, he quite knew what,--a child's voice, pretty, perhaps, thin and reedy, nasal, of course. His good friend Brown was an excellent physician, but with no knowledge of music; how should he have any, living buried in the country, twenty miles from a railway, forty miles from a concert? Brown had said so much about the blind child that it would have been discourteous for him, Dr. Anthony, to refuse to see and hear her when he came to pass a night with his old college chum; but his assent had been rather wearily given: Dr. Anthony detested juvenile prodigies. But what was this? A voice full and round as the voices of Italy; clear as a bird's; swelling