half-palsied hands and breath returned to his shrunken little body. His
own music was the one sound he heard in all its distinctness, and he
hung upon it with an enjoyment which was almost doting in its childish
delight.

So the fluting went on merrily, while Mrs. Payne and Mrs. Bleeker, after
fidgeting a moment in the drawing-room, decided that they would return
for a word or two with Angela. "It is really the only place in the house
where one can escape Percival's music," declared Mrs. Payne, who frankly
confessed that she had reached the time of life when to bore her was the
chief offence society could commit, "so, besides the comfort I afford
dear Angela, it is much the pleasantest place for me to pass the
evening. I've always been a merciful woman my child," she pursued
shaking her little flat, false gray curls above her painted wrinkles,
"for never in my life have I cast a stone at anyone who amused me; but
as for Percival and his flute! Well, I won't say a disagreeable word on
the subject, but I honestly think that a passion at his age is
absolutely indecent."

She was so grotesquely gorgeous with her winking diamonds and her old
point lace, which yawned over her lean neck, that the distinction she
had always aimed at seemed achieved at last by an ironic exaggeration.

"At least it is a perfectly harmless passion," suggested her husband, a
beautiful old man of seventy gracious years.

"Harmless!" gasped Mrs. Payne. "Why, it has wrecked the nerves of the
entire family, has given me Saint Vitus' dance, has kept Laura awake for
nights, has reduced Angela to hysterics, and you actually have the face
to tell me it is harmless! Judged by its effects, I consider it quite