shrivelled up, dead, with its head drooping. This was a bad omen.
He knew what sensitive creatures flowers are, and had noticed that
they thrive with some people and not with others. He remembered how
sometimes, in his wife's lifetime, her rose, which always stood on
her little work-table, had faded and died quite unexpectedly. And
he had also noticed that this always happened when _his sun_ was
hiding behind a cloud, which after a while would dissolve in large
drops to the accompaniment of a low rumbling. Roses must have peace
and kind words; they can't bear harsh voices. They love music, and
sometimes he would play to the roses and they opened their buds
and smiled.

Now Louisa was a hard woman, and often muttered and growled to
herself when she turned out the room. There were days when she was
in a very bad temper, so that the milk curdled in the kitchen, and
the whole dinner tasted of discord, which the conductor noticed
at once; for he was himself like a delicate instrument, whose soul
responded to moods and influences which other people did not feel.

He concluded that Louisa had killed the rose; perhaps if she had
scolded the poor thing, or knocked the glass, or breathed on the
flower angrily, a treatment which it could not bear. Therefore he
rang again; and when Louisa put in her head, he said, not unkindly,
but more firmly than before:

"What have you done to my rose, Louisa?"

"Nothing, sir!"

"Nothing? Do you think the flower died without a very good reason?