Excerpt: ...more than you ever dreamed of in all your life before. I wish I could describe things, but you know I can't, so you won't expect it. But one thing I will tell you, if you'll promise not to tell any living soul-" "Stop, my dear!" said Mrs. Grahame, quickly. "We must not touch upon the boy's confidences. Head that part to yourself." "Thank you, ma'am!" said Hilda. "This mark of trust is most gratifying, I assure you. 'Not tell any living soul except your mother, dear.' Now how do you feel, madam?" "Dear Jack!" ...
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Excerpt: ...more than you ever dreamed of in all your life before. I wish I could describe things, but you know I can't, so you won't expect it. But one thing I will tell you, if you'll promise not to tell any living soul-" "Stop, my dear!" said Mrs. Grahame, quickly. "We must not touch upon the boy's confidences. Head that part to yourself." "Thank you, ma'am!" said Hilda. "This mark of trust is most gratifying, I assure you. 'Not tell any living soul except your mother, dear.' Now how do you feel, madam?" "Dear Jack!" said Mrs. Grahame, softly. "Dear lad! of course I shall like to hear it. Go on, Hilda, and I promise not to interrupt again." "The day after the last concert-it was only day before yesterday, but it seems an age-I went to take my lesson, and my master was not there. He is often late, so I just took out some music and began to play over the things I had studied. There was a sonata of Rubinstein's, very splendid, that has quite possessed me lately. I played that, and I suppose I forgot where I was and all about it, for I went on and on, never hearing a sound except just the music. You must hear it when I come back, Hilda. It begins in the minor, and then there is the most superb sweep up into the major; your heart seems to sweep up with it, and you find yourself in another world, where everything is divine harmony. I'm talking nonsense, I know, but that piece just sends me off my head altogether. Well, at last I finished it and came down from the clouds, and when I turned around, Hilda, there was the maestro himself, standing and listening. Well! you can't go through the floor and all that sort of thing, as they do in the fairy-books, but I did wish I was a mouse, or a flea, or anything smaller that there is. He stood still a minute. Perhaps he was afraid I would behave like some asses the other day-they weren't Americans, I am happy to say- who met him, and went down on their knees in the hotel entry, and took bits of mud from his shoes...
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