'You don't remember me, Miss Trent, but I knew your father well
enough, and I knew you when you was a little 'un. In those days I
had the "Green Man" in the Cut; your father often enough gave us a
toon on his fiddle. A rare good fiddler he was, too! Give us a song
now, for old times' sake.'

Thyrza found herself preparing, in spite of herself. She trembled
violently, and her heart beat with a strange pain. She heard the
chairman shout her name; the sound made her face burn.

'Oh, what shall I sing?' she whispered distractedly to Totty, whilst
all eyes were turned to regard her.

'Sing "A Penny for your thoughts."'

It was the one song she knew of her father's making, a
half-mirthful, half-pathetic little piece in the form of a dialogue
between husband and wife, a true expression of the life of working
folk, which only a man who was more than half a poet could have
shaped.

The seedy youth at the piano was equal to any demand for
accompaniment; Totty hummed the air to him, and he had his chords
ready without delay.

Thyrza raised her face and began to sing. Yes, it was different
enough from anything that had come before; her pure sweet tones
touched the hearers profoundly; not a foot stirred. At the second
verse she had grown in confidence, and rose more boldly to the upper
notes. At the end she was singing her best--better than she had