"Oh, yes, I knew we should need it," she nodded to Bertram, as she picked up the shawl from the hall stand where she had left it when she came in. "That's why I brought it."

"Oh, my grief and conscience, Cyril, how _can_ you stand it?--to climb stairs like this," panted Aunt Hannah, as she reached the top of the last flight and dropped breathlessly into the nearest chair--from which Marie had rescued a curtain just in time.

"Well, I'm not sure I could--if I were always to eat a Thanksgiving dinner just before," laughed Cyril. "Maybe I ought to have waited and let you rest an hour or two."

"But 'twould have been too dark, then, to see the rug," objected Marie.

"It's a genuine Persian--a Kirman, you know; and I'm so proud of it,"

she added, turning to the others. "I wanted you to see the colors by daylight. Cyril likes it better, anyhow, in the daytime."

"Fancy Cyril _liking_ any sort of a rug at any time," chuckled Bertram, his eyes on the rich, softly blended colors of the rug before him.

"Honestly, Miss Marie," he added, turning to the little bride elect, "how did you ever manage to get him to buy _any_ rug? He won't have so much as a ravelling on the floor up here to walk on."

A startled dismay came into Marie's blue eyes.

"Why, I thought he wanted rugs," she faltered. "I'm sure he said--"

"Of course I want rugs," interrupted Cyril, irritably. "I want them everywhere except in my own especial den. You don't suppose I want to hear other people clattering over bare floors all day, do you?"

"Of course not!" Bertram's face was preternaturally grave as he turned to the little music teacher. "I hope, Miss Marie, that you wear rubber heels on your shoes," he observed solicitously.

Even Cyril laughed at this, though all he said was:

"Come, come, I got you up here to look at the rug."

Bertram, however, was not to be silenced.

"And another thing, Miss Marie," he resumed, with the air of a true and tried adviser. "Just let me give you a pointer. I've lived with your future husband a good many years, and I know what I'm talking about."

"Bertram, be still," growled Cyril.

Bertram refused to be still.

"Whenever you want to know anything about Cyril, listen to his playing.

For instance: if, after dinner, you hear a dreamy waltz or a sleepy nocturne, you may know that all is well. But if on your ears there falls anything like a dirge, or the wail of a lost spirit gone mad, better look to your soup and see if it hasn't been scorched, or taste of your pudding and see if you didn't put in salt instead of sugar."

"Bertram, will you be still?" cut in Cyril, testily, again.

"After all, judging from what Billy tells me," resumed Bertram, cheerfully, "what I've said won't be so important to you, for you aren't the kind that scorches soups or uses salt for sugar. So maybe I'd better put it to you this way: if you want a new sealskin coat or an extra diamond tiara, tackle him when he plays like this!" And with a swift turn Bertram dropped himself to the piano stool and dashed into a rollicking melody that half the newsboys of Boston were whistling.

What happened next was a surprise to every one. Bertram, very much as if he were a naughty little boy, was jerked by a wrathful brother's hand off the piano stool. The next moment the wrathful brother himself sat at the piano, and there burst on five pairs of astonished ears a crashing dissonance which was but the prelude to music such as few of the party often heard.

Spellbound they listened while rippling runs and sonorous harmonies filled the room to overflowing, as if under the fingers of the player there were--not the keyboard of a piano--but the violins, flutes, cornets, trombones, ba.s.s viols and kettledrums of a full orchestra.

Billy, perhaps, of them all, best understood. She knew that in those tripping melodies and crashing chords were Cyril's joy at the presence of Marie, his wrath at the flippancy of Bertram, his ecstasy at that for which the rug and curtains stood--the little woman sewing in the radiant circle of a shaded lamp. Billy knew that all this and more were finding voice at Cyril's finger tips. The others, too, understood in a way; but they, unlike Billy, were not in the habit of finding on a few score bits of wood and ivory a vent for their moods and fancies.

The music was softer now. The resounding chords and purling runs had become a bell-like melody that wound itself in and out of a maze of exquisite harmonies, now hiding, now coming out clear and unafraid, like a mountain stream emerging into a sunlit meadow from the leafy shadows of its forest home.

In a breathless hush the melody quivered into silence. It was Bertram who broke the pause with a long-drawn:

"By George!" Then, a little unsteadily: "If it's I that set you going like that, old chap, I'll come up and play ragtime every day!"

Cyril shrugged his shoulders and got to his feet.

"If you've seen all you want of the rug we'll go down-stairs," he said nonchalantly.

"But we haven't!" chorussed several indignant voices. And for the next few minutes not even the owner of the beautiful Kirman could find any fault with the quant.i.ty or the quality of the attention bestowed on his new possession. But Billy, under cover of the chatter, said reproachfully in his ear:

"Oh, Cyril, to think you can play like that--and won't--on demand!"

"I can't--on demand," shrugged Cyril again.

On the way down-stairs they stopped at William's rooms.

"I want you to see a couple of Batterseas I got last week," cried the collector eagerly, as he led the way to the black velvet square.

"They're fine--and I think she looks like you," he finished, turning to Billy, and holding out one of the k.n.o.bs, on which was a beautifully executed miniature of a young girl with dark, dreamy eyes.

"Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed Marie, over Billy's shoulder. "But what are they?"

The collector turned, his face alight.

"Mirror k.n.o.bs. I've got lots of them. Would you like to see them--really? They're right here."

The next minute Marie found herself looking into a cabinet where lay a score or more of round and oval discs of gla.s.s, porcelain, and metal, framed in silver, gilt, and bra.s.s, and mounted on long spikes.

"Oh, how pretty," cried Marie again; "but how--how queer! Tell me about them, please."

William drew a long breath. His eyes glistened. William loved to talk--when he had a curio and a listener.

"I will. Our great-grandmothers used them, you know, to support their mirrors, or to fasten back their curtains," he explained ardently.

"Now here's another Battersea enamel, but it isn't so good as my new ones--that face is almost a caricature."

"But what a beautiful ship--on that round one!" exclaimed Marie. "And what's this one?--gla.s.s?"

"Yes; but that's not so rare as the others. Still, it's pretty enough.

Did you notice this one, with the bright red and blue and green on the white background?--regular Chinese mode of decoration, that is."

"Er--any time, William," began Bertram, mischievously; but William did not seem to hear.

"Now in this corner," he went on, warming to his subject, "are the enamelled porcelains. They were probably made at the Worcester works--England, you know; and I think many of them are quite as pretty as the Batterseas. You see it was at Worcester that they invented that variation of the transfer printing process that they called bat printing, where they used oil instead of ink, and gelatine instead of paper. Now engravings for that kind of printing were usually in stipple work--dots, you know--so the prints on these k.n.o.bs can easily be distinguished from those of the transfer printing. See? Now, this one is--"

"Er, of course, William, any time--" interposed Bertram again, his eyes twinkling.

William stopped with a laugh.

"Yes, I know. 'Tis time I talked of something else, Bertram," he conceded.

"But 'twas lovely, and I _was_ interested, really," claimed Marie.

"Besides, there are such a lot of things here that I'd like to see," she finished, turning slowly about.