CHAPTER XIII.

DREAMS AND REALITIES.

The following Friday Gretta and Winnifred were dismissed at recess, the Friday afternoon privilege of those who had had perfect marks for the week. As they passed out through the yard together, Gretta said:

"I'm going to church to practice my organ lesson. Come go with me, Win."

Winnifred hesitated. "If I had spoken to mamma about it this morning--"

"Well, let's go and ask her now."

"No, she won't be at home. She was going out to Walnut Hills to make several calls."

"Then I don't see what's to keep you from going with me. No one will know whether you are with me or at school."

Winnie knew very well that she had no right to be away without anyone at home knowing where she was, but she hesitated--and was lost. The temptation was too great; and beside, she reasoned, "What difference can it possibly make whether I am at school or at the church? If I had not had good marks I couldn't have gone home, anyway."

So the two girls passed on up the street together. Winnifred soon forgot her scruples, and laughed and chattered away as usual. She had been reading Grimm's story of the boy who could not understand what it was to shiver. She had thought it very amusing, and now she narrated it at length to Gretta as they went along, so that they reached the church before Gretta had stopped laughing at the absurd climax.

They went up the flight of steep stone steps and tried the side door that led to the choir gallery, but it was locked, and Gretta said, "We'll have to go the back way; come on, Win." So they descended the stairs again and went through the narrow side yard at the right of the church.

At the back were two rooms which at this time were occupied by the janitor and his wife. Gretta knocked, and when the door was opened by a smiling woman, walked in with an I-have-a-right-to manner, simply saying, "I've come to practice." Winnifred followed somewhat bashfully, but recovered her sense of being herself when the door of the little living-room closed upon them. The two girls crossed a narrow passage and opened a door leading to a stairway. It was very dark here, but Gretta had traveled up and down these stairs so many times that she went swiftly now, while Winnifred, unaccustomed to them, groped her way along through the darkness very slowly.

When she reached the top Gretta opened another door which led into the church itself, always filled with people when Winnifred had seen it before, but now empty and mysterious, with the light dimmed and deepened and transformed as it made its way through the stained-glass windows. She breathed a little heavily as she glanced up at the pulpit on the left, and almost felt as if she would hear a voice rise from the empty air and chide them for their boldness in entering so sacred a place on workaday business. But Gretta, entirely accustomed to independent errands connected with musical matters, passed on up the narrow side aisle, Winnifred following slowly.

Then came another narrow staircase leading to the choir gallery, which faced the pulpit. When they reached the top they found the shades all down and the place quite dark except for a long, narrow beam of light which streamed through a crevice in one of the blinds. Winnifred stopped on the threshold with something like fear, which was yet pleasing because of the sense of mystery and romance which was blended with it in her imaginative young mind. Gretta, however, stepped in at once and went quickly toward the back of the gallery. Here she suddenly pulled up a shade, and Winnifred saw numbers of music books piled up on one of the long benches.

Gretta opened the organ and sat down. She reached the pedals with some difficulty, being obliged to stretch her legs somewhat in order to do so; but this, like everything else with her, was a part of the musical education which was the chief business of her life and of all the lives nearest to her. She began to play a voluntary, softly, slowly and reverently, yet clearly, and with wonderful appreciation for a child just entering her teens.

Winnifred climbed into the darkest corner she could find and gave herself up to enjoyment of the music and all the unusual surroundings. Forgetting all else, she began to weave herself and Gretta into a little story of a world separate and apart from the world she had always known: a world filled with visionary forms and faces, and in which there was no sound but that of music.

"Over there in that pew just under the stained-glass window," she thought, "is a little girl who cannot see, but who has never missed her eyesight, because she does not need it. She lives only in this world, where there is nothing but sweet sounds. She will grow up some day and go out into the other world where Gretta and I lived yesterday, but she will be a poet like Milton, whose picture, when he was such a beautiful boy, I saw yesterday; but she will not be sad like him, because she knows only the world of poetry and music.

"Over in that other pew," Winnie's dreams ran on, "is that poor, little, blind beggar girl I saw on the street yesterday afternoon. She isn't hungry now, for this is the fairyland of music where people do not need to eat. The music has gone straight to her heart--and see! she creeps softly over to the opposite pew--how did she know that the other little blind girl was there?--she creeps softly to the other pew, and they clasp hands and feel as happy as if they had looked into each other's eyes.

"And who is that sweet-faced girl in the pew just in front of the pulpit? She is beautiful. She looks like Nydia, the blind girl in 'The Last Days of Pompeii,' but she can't be Nydia, for Nydia lived and died hundreds of years ago. But she listens to the music just as Nydia might do if she were here now. It is not so sad to be blind in a world of music. And yet--how would I know where they were sitting if I were blind, too?"

And Winnie closed her eyes to try how it would seem not to be able to see. The music floated out upon the air; it grew softer and softer and sounded farther and farther away, and at last Winnie ceased to hear it, for the darkness and the gentle sounds had so soothed her senses that she went straight from day-dreamland to slumberland.

Gretta all unconsciously played on until she had finished her allotted task, forgetting the existence of Winnifred as completely as the latter had forgotten hers. But by and by she had finished the last bar, and jumped up from her seat with a feeling of satisfaction. She looked around in surprise for a moment when she realized that Winnifred had gone to sleep. The next thing the latter knew Gretta was shouting into her ear: "Wake up! Wake up, Winnie! I'm all through my practice and ready to go home. Let's hurry! It must be late."

They gathered up their school books, the sense of haste taking away all the feeling of mystery and romance. When they looked at the clock in the little room downstairs on their way out, Winnifred was dismayed and realized suddenly that she ought to have been at home an hour ago. She had a very uncomfortable walk home, particularly after she had parted from Gretta, but, as it happened, her mother had not yet returned and her absence had been unnoticed.

She told her mother about it in the evening--of how sweetly Gretta had played, and how she had imagined a world made on purpose for blind people.

Mrs. Burton only said, "I am glad you had such a nice afternoon, dear. It is one you will always remember. You were fortunate that nothing happened to spoil the pleasure of it. I am glad I was not at home, however, for I fear I would have been very uneasy about you."