And your
hair--"
"My hair is like sweet Alice's," said the child, confidently,--"sweet
Alice, whose hair was so brown. I promised Auntie Joy we would sing
that for her, the very next time you came, but I never thought you
would be here to-day, Rosin.
'Where have you been, my long, long love, this seven long years and
more?'
That's a ballad, Rosin; Doctor taught it to me. It is a beauty, and
you must make me a tune for it. But where _have_ you been?"
"I've been up and down the earth," the old man replied,--"up and down
the earth, Melody. Sometimes here and sometimes there. I'd feel a call
here, and I'd feel a call there; and I seemed to be wanted, generally,
just in those very places I'd felt called to. Do you believe in calls,
Melody?"
"Of course I do," replied the child, promptly. "Only all the people
who call you can't get you, Rosin, 'cause you'd be in fifty pieces if
they did." She laughed joyously, throwing her head back with the
birdlike, rapturous motion which seemed the very expression of her
nature.
The old fiddler watched her with delight. "You shall hear all my
stories," he said; "everything you shall hear, little Melody; but here
we are at the house now, and I must make my manners to the ladies.
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