The most discreet and cautious effort on the part of the young performer
seemed only to produce startlingly unexpected, but instantly suppressed
complaints from the instrument, accompanied by impatient interjections
of "No, no," from the girl herself. Nevertheless, with her pretty
eyebrows knitted in some charming distress of memory, her little mouth
half open between an apologetic smile and the exertion of working the
bellows, with her white, rounded arms partly lifted up and waving
before her, she was pleasantly distracting to the eye. Gradually, as the
scattered strains were marshaled into something like an air, she began
to sing also, glossing over the instrumental weaknesses, filling
in certain dropped notes and omissions, and otherwise assisting the
ineffectual accordion with a youthful but not unmusical voice. The song
was a lugubrious religious chant; under its influence the house seemed
to sink into greater quiet, permitting in the intervals the murmur of
the swollen creek to appear more distinct, and even the far moaning of
the wind on the plain to become faintly audible. At last, having fairly
mastered the instrument, Phemie got into the full swing of the chant.
Unconstrained by any criticism, carried away by the sound of her own
voice, and perhaps a youthful love for mere uproar, or possibly desirous
to drown her father's voice, which had unexpectedly joined in with a
discomposing bass, the conjoined utterances seemed to threaten the frail
structure of their dwelling, even as the gale had distended the store
behind them. When they ceased at last it was in an accession of dripping
from the apparently stirred leaves outside. And then a voice, evidently
from the moist depths of the abyss below, called out,--

"Hullo, there!"

Phemie put down the accordion, said, "Who's that now?" went to the
window, lazily leaned her elbows on the sill, and peered into the