He removed the covering with reverential hands. The
tenderness of his face was like that of a young mother dressing or
undressing her child. As he fingered the instrument his hands seemed
to have become all eyes. They wandered caressingly over the polished
surface as if enamoured of the perfect thing that they had created,
lingering here and there with rapturous tenderness on some special
beauty--the graceful arch of the neck, the melting curves of the
cheeks, the delicious swell of the breasts.
When he had satisfied himself for the moment, he took the bow, and
lifting the violin under his chin, inclined his head fondly toward it
and began to play.
The tone at first seemed muffled, but had a curious bite, that began
in distant echoes, but after a few minutes' playing grew firmer and
clearer, ringing out at last with velvety richness and strength until
the atmosphere was satiated with harmony. No more ethereal note ever
flew out of a bird's throat than Anthony Croft set free from this
violin, his liebling, his "swan song," made in the year he had lost
his eyesight.
Anthony Croft had been the only son of his mother, and she a widow.
His boyhood had been exactly like that of all the other boys in
Edgewood, save that he hated school a trifle more, if possible, than
any of the others; though there was a unanimity of aversion in this
matter that surprised and wounded teachers and parents.
The school was the ordinary district school of that time; there were
not enough scholars for what Cyse Higgins called a "degraded" school.
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