"But all that seems such a pity-when they"ve tried," grieved Billy.
"It is a pity, Miss Neilson. Disappointed hopes are always a pity, aren"t they?"
"Y-yes," sighed the girl. "But--if there were only something one could do to--help!"
Arkwright"s eyes grew deep with feeling, but his voice, when he spoke, was purposely light.
"I"m afraid that would be quite too big a contract for even your generosity, Miss Neilson--to mend all the broken hopes in the world," he prophesied.
"I have known great good to come from great disappointments," remarked Aunt Hannah, a bit didactically.
"So have I," laughed Arkwright, still determined to drive the troubled shadow from the face he was watching so intently. "For instance: a fellow I know was feeling all cut up last Friday because he was just too late to get into Symphony Hall on the twenty-five-cent admission. Half an hour afterwards his disappointment was turned to joy--a friend who had an orchestra chair couldn"t use his ticket that day, and so handed it over to him."
Billy turned interestedly.
"What are those twenty-five-cent tickets to the Symphony?"
"Then--you don"t know?"
"Not exactly. I"ve heard of them, in a vague fashion."
"Then you"ve missed one of the sights of Boston if you haven"t ever seen that long line of patient waiters at the door of Symphony Hall of a Friday morning."
"Morning! But the concert isn"t till afternoon!"
"No, but the waiting is," retorted Arkwright. "You see, those admissions are limited--five hundred and five, I believe--and they"re rush seats, at that. First come, first served; and if you"re too late you aren"t served at all. So the first arrival comes bright and early. I"ve heard that he has been known to come at peep of day when there"s a Paderewski or a Melba for a drawing card. But I"ve got my doubts of that. Anyhow, I never saw them there much before half-past eight. But many"s the cold, stormy day I"ve seen those steps in front of the Hall packed for hours, and a long line reaching away up the avenue."
Billy"s eyes widened.
"And they"ll stand all that time and wait?"
"To be sure they will. You see, each pays twenty-five cents at the door, until the limit is reached, then the rest are turned away. Naturally they don"t want to be turned away, so they try to get there early enough to be among the fortunate five hundred and five. Besides, the earlier you are, the better seat you are likely to get."
"But only think of _standing_ all that time!"
"Oh, they bring camp chairs, sometimes, I"ve heard, and then there are the steps. You don"t know what a really fine seat a stone step is--if you have a _big_ enough bundle of newspapers to cushion it with! They bring their luncheons, too, with books, papers, and knitting work for fine days, I"ve been told--some of them. All the comforts of home, you see," smiled Arkwright.
"Why, how--how dreadful!" stammered Billy.
"Oh, but they don"t think it"s dreadful at all," corrected Arkwright, quickly. "For twenty-five cents they can hear all that you hear down in your orchestra chair, for which you"ve paid so high a premium."
"But who--who are they? Where do they come from? Who _would_ go and stand hours like that to get a twenty-five-cent seat?" questioned Billy.
"Who are they? Anybody, everybody, from anywhere? everywhere; people who have the music hunger but not the money to satisfy it," he rejoined.
"Students, teachers, a little milliner from South Boston, a little dressmaker from Chelsea, a housewife from Cambridge, a stranger from the uttermost parts of the earth; maybe a widow who used to sit down-stairs, or a professor who has seen better days. Really to know that line, you should see it for yourself, Miss Neilson," smiled Arkwright, as he reluctantly rose to go. "Some Friday, however, before you take your seat, just glance up at that packed top balcony and judge by the faces you see there whether their owners think they"re getting their twenty-five-cents" worth, or not."
"I will," nodded Billy, with a smile; but the smile came from her lips only, not her eyes: Billy was wishing, at that moment, that she owned the whole of Symphony Hall--to give away. But that was like Billy. When she was seven years old she had proposed to her Aunt Ella that they take all the thirty-five orphans from the Hampden Falls Orphan Asylum to live with them, so that little Sallie Cook and the other orphans might have ice cream every day, if they wanted it. Since then Billy had always been trying--in a way--to give ice cream to some one who wanted it.
Arkwright was almost at the door when he turned abruptly. His face was an abashed red. From his pocket he had taken a small folded paper.
"Do you suppose--in this--you might find--that melody?" he stammered in a low voice. The next moment he was gone, having left in Billy"s fingers a paper upon which was written in a clear-cut, masculine hand six four-line stanzas.
Billy read them at once, hurriedly, then more carefully.
"Why, they"re beautiful," she breathed, "just beautiful! Where did he get them, I wonder? It"s a love song--and such a pretty one! I believe there _is_ a melody in it," she exulted, pausing to hum a line or two. "There is--I know there is; and I"ll write it--for Bertram," she finished, crossing joyously to the piano.
Half-way down Corey Hill at that moment, Arkwright was buffeting the wind and snow. He, too, was thinking joyously of those stanzas--joyously, yet at the same time fearfully. Arkwright himself had written those lines--though not for Bertram.
CHAPTER XV. "MR. BILLY" AND "MISS MARY JANE"
On the fourteenth of December Billy came down-stairs alert, interested, and happy. She had received a dear letter from Bertram (mailed on the way to New York), the sun was shining, and her fingers were fairly tingling to put on paper the little melody that was now surging riotously through her brain. Emphatically, the restlessness of the day before was gone now. Once more Billy"s "clock" had "begun to tick."
After breakfast Billy went straight to the telephone and called up Arkwright. Even one side of the conversation Aunt Hannah did not hear very clearly; but in five minutes a radiant-faced Billy danced into the room.
"Aunt Hannah, just listen! Only think--Mary Jane wrote the words himself, so of course I can use them!"
"Billy, dear, _can"t_ you say "Mr. Arkwright"?" pleaded Aunt Hannah.
Billy laughed and gave the anxious-eyed little old lady an impulsive hug.
"Of course! I"ll say "His Majesty" if you like, dear," she chuckled.
"But did you hear--did you realize? They"re his own words, so there"s no question of rights or permission, or anything. And he"s coming up this afternoon to hear my melody, and to make a few little changes in the words, maybe. Oh, Aunt Hannah, you don"t know how good it seems to get into my music again!"
"Yes, yes, dear, of course; but--" Aunt Hannah"s sentence ended in a vaguely troubled pause.
Billy turned in surprise.
"Why, Aunt Hannah, aren"t you glad? You _said_ you"d be glad!"
"Yes, dear; and I am--very glad. It"s only--if it doesn"t take too much time--and if Bertram doesn"t mind."
Billy flushed. She laughed a little bitterly.
"No, it won"t take too much time, I fancy, and--so far as Bertram is concerned--if what Sister Kate says is true, Aunt Hannah, he"ll be glad to have me occupy a little of my time with something besides himself."
"Fiddlededee!" bristled Aunt Hannah.
"What did she mean by that?"
Billy smiled ruefully.
"Well, probably I did need it. She said it night before last just before she went home with Uncle William. She declared that I seemed to forget entirely that Bertram belonged to his Art first, before he belonged to me; and that it was exactly as she had supposed it would be--a perfect absurdity for Bertram to think of marrying anybody."
"Fiddlededee!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the irate Aunt Hannah, even more sharply. "I hope you have too much good sense to mind what Kate says, Billy."