Peanuts were the order of the day, and their assertive crackle broke in
upon the finest passages. Elizabeth wished her cousin would take a walk;
and by and by she did, politely inviting Elizabeth to go along; but she
declined, and they were left to sit through the remainder of the afternoon
concert.
After supper they watched the lights come out, Elizabeth thinking about
the description of the heavenly city as one after another the buildings
blazed out against the darkening blue of the June night. The music was
about to begin. Indeed, it could be heard already in the distance, and
drew the girl irresistibly. For the first time that day she made a move,
and the others followed, half wearied of their dissipations, and not
knowing exactly what to do next.
They stood the first half of the concert very well, but at the
intermission they wandered out to view the electric fountain with its
many-colored fluctuations, and to take a row on the tiny sheet of water.
Elizabeth remained sitting where she was, and watched the fountain. Even
her grandmother and aunt grew restless, and wanted to walk again. They
said they had had enough music, and did not want to hear any more. They
could hear it well enough, anyway, from further off. They believed they
would have some ice-cream. Didn't Elizabeth want some?
She smiled sweetly. Would grandmother mind if she sat right there and
heard the second part of the concert? She loved music, and this was fine.
She didn't feel like eating another thing to-night. So the two ladies,
thinking the girl queer that she didn't want ice-cream, went off to enjoy
theirs with a clear conscience; and Elizabeth drew a long breath, and sat
back with her eyes closed, to test and breathe in the sweet sounds that
were beginning to float out delicately as if to feel whether the
atmosphere were right for what was to come after.
It was just at the close of this wonderful music, which the programme said
was Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," when Elizabeth looked up to meet the eyes
of some one who stood near in the aisle watching her, and there beside her
stood the man of the wilderness!
He was looking at her face, drinking in the beauty of the profile and
wondering whether he were right. Could it be that this was his little
brown friend, the maid of the wilderness? This girl with the lovely,
refined face, the intellectual brow, the dainty fineness of manner? She
looked like some white angel dropped down into that motley company of
Sunday-school picknickers and city pleasure-seekers. The noise and clatter
of the place seemed far away from her. She was absorbed utterly in the
sweet sounds.
When she looked up and saw him, the smile that flashed out upon her face
was like the sunshine upon a day that has hitherto been still and almost
sad. The eyes said, "You are come at last!" The curve of the lips said, "I
am glad you are here!"