Vanda began, in a low and tender voice, to sing a Polish song which held Godefroid dumb with admiration and also with sadness.This melody, which greatly resembles the long drawn out melancholy airs of Brittany, is one of those poems which vibrate in the heart long after the ear has heard them.As he listened, Godefroid looked at Vanda, but he could not endure the ecstatic glance of that fragment of a woman, partially insane, and his eyes wandered to two cords which hung one on each side of the canopy of the bed.
"Ah ha!" laughed Vanda, noticing his look, "do you want to know what those cords are for?""Vanda!" said her father, hastily, "calm yourself, my daughter.See!
here comes tea.That, monsieur," he continued, turning to Godefroid, "is rather a costly affair.My daughter cannot rise, and therefore it is difficult to change her sheets.Those cords are fastened to pulleys; by slipping a square of leather beneath her and drawing it up by the four corners with these pulleys, we are able to make her bed without fatigue to her or to ourselves.""They swing me!" cried Vanda, gaily.
Happily, Auguste now came in with a teapot, which he placed on a table, together with the Sevres tea-set; then he brought cakes and sandwiches and cream.This sight diverted his mother's mind from the nervous crisis which seemed to threaten her.
"See, Vanda, here is Nathan's new novel.If you wake in the night you will have something to read.""Oh! delightful! 'La Perle de Dol;' it must be a love-story,--Auguste, I have something to tell you! I'm to have an accordion!"Auguste looked up suddenly with a strange glance at his grandfather.