New York (N.Y.) -- History -- 1775-1865 -- Fiction
"I suppose you don't know what that is!" said Miss Lois, when she saw
the little girl inspecting it. "That's a harp. Young ladies played on it
when we were young ourselves. And they had a spinet. I believe it's
altered now and called a piano."
"A harp!" said the little girl in amaze. Her ideas of a harp were very
vague, but she thought it was something you carried around with you.
She had heard the children sing
"I want to be an angel
And with the angels stand;
A crown upon my forehead,
A harp within my hand,"
and the size of this confused her.
"But how could you play on it?" she asked.
"You stood this way. You could sit down, but it was considered more
graceful to stand. And you played in this manner."
She fingered the rusted strings. A few emitted a doleful sort of sound
almost like a cry.
"We've all grown old together," she said sorrowfully. "It was considered
a great accomplishment in my time. I believe people still play on the
harp. We had a great many curious things, but several years ago a
committee of some kind came and bought them. We needed the money sadly,
and we had no one to leave them to when we died. There was some
beautiful old china, and a lady bought the fan and handkerchief that my
grandmother carried at her wedding. The handkerchief was worked at some
convent in Italy and was fine as a cobweb. My mother used it, and then
it was laid by for us. But we never needed it," and she gave a soft
sigh.
She had glided out now and then to look after Jane, who was eating as
if she was starved. And in the broken bits of talk Mr. Underhill had
learned by indirect questioning that they had parted with their land by
degrees, and with some family valuables, until there was only this old
house and a small space of ground left.
Miss Jane was anxious now to see the visitors. But she was so deaf Lois
had to repeat everything, and she seemed to forget the moment a thing
was said. Dobbin whinnied as if he thought the call had been long
enough.
Mr. Underhill squeezed a bank-note into the hand of Miss Lois as he said
good-by. "Get some little luxury for your sister," he added.
"Thank you for all your friendliness," and the tears stood in her eyes.
"Come again and bring your sister Margaret," she said to the little
girl.
They drove over westward a short distance. The rocky gorge was still
there, and at its foot was one of the first battle-fields of this
vicinity. Hanny looked at it wonderingly.
"Then Washington retreated up to Kingsbridge," began her father. "They
found they could not hold that, and so went on to White Plains, followed
by some Hessian troops. They didn't seem very fortunate at first, for
they were beaten again. Grandmother can tell you a good deal about that.
And a great-uncle had his house burned down and they were forced to fly
to a little old house on top of a hill. My father was a little boy
then."
The little girl looked amazed. Did he know about the war?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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