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THE BIRTH OF THE GREAT SYMPHONY
and played to her, while his mother nodded and slumbered intermittently.
Timidly at first, then with a greater freedom impelled by the gentle sympathy of him, the little Elaine told of the many hours he had made beautiful for her with the song of his violin.
"So many times," she told him, "when mother was very late and I sat alone waiting for her, I would be afraid — afraid for us both— we were so defenseless and weak. And then I would go up close to the door and listen. Your music seemed to lift me up, beyond it all. It seemed /to say 'Have faith — have faith'; and it spoke the truth — for now mother has gone Home, indeed, and I have found one, too."
In the tiny, sky-high home, where genius lived, hard-pressed by poverty, the little, blind girl lent a lovely grace. Sightless, she glimpsed for them, with the clear eyes of her soul, a loftier height — a sweeter goal — than they had visioned in many a weary year.
To Earl's mother she came as a foretaste of heaven — a touch gently soothing and miraculously dear. To
Earl himself she was the spirit of his violin — the soul-self of the genius he worshiped. She was song — she was melody — she was music freed of the finite touch. In the sweet pain of her sightless eyes he read his truest joy; in the innocent love of her heart he knew this truth: "On earth as it is in heaven." And from the glowing sanctity of this high love Genius bent low and offered her thrilling lips.
She told them much of their life — her mother's and hers — in the long, communing evenings: of the father who had caused her mother's disinheritance and then deserted her before the little Elaine came into being; of the mother's lacerated heart and rudely shattered youth; of her own birth and the quenched light of her eyes ; of her mother 's utter heartbreak.
"She would be so glad," she told him simply, "if she could know that you and your music have made me see. I do not need the light of my eyes when I have the light your music gives me — and your love. ' '
* ' You do love me, my little Elaine ? ' '
"I have always loved you," she an
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