Phil put it beside the other photograph, and studied them both intently as Joyce went on.
"Then the other day, when her father was here, I noticed that he had a new name for her. He called her that several times, and when he went away, he said it in a tone that seemed to mean so much, 'Good-bye, my little _Hildegarde_!'"
Phil looked from the pictures on the table to the original, standing in the kitchen wielding a rolling-pin under Mrs. Ware's direction. The morning sun, streaming through the window, was making a halo of her hair. Somehow he found this last view the most pleasing. He said nothing, however, only thrummed idly on the table, and hummed an old song that had been running through his head all morning.
"What's that you're humming?" asked Joyce, when she had worked on in silence several minutes.
Phil came to himself with a start. "I'm sure I don't know," he laughed. "I wasn't conscious that I was making even an attempt to sing."
"It went this way," said Joyce, whistling the refrain, softly. "It's so sweet."
"Oh, that," said Phil, recognizing the air. "That's a song that Elsie's old English nurse used to sing her to sleep with.
"'Maid Elsie roams by lane and lea, Her heart beats low and sad.'
She liked it because it had her name in it, and I liked it because of the jingle of the chorus. It always seemed full of bells to me." He hummed it lightly:
"'Kling, lang ling, She seems to hear her bride-bells ring, Her bonny bride-bells ring.'
It must have been these bridal musicale programmes that brought it up to me, for I haven't thought of it in years."
"And that suggests something to me," answered Joyce. "I haven't used any wedding-bells on these programmes. Now, let me see. How can I put them on?" She sat studying one of the empty cards intently.
"Here! This way!" cried Phil. "I can't draw it as it ought to be, but I can see in my mind's eye what you want. Put a Cupid up in each top corner, with a bunch of five narrow ribbons, strung across from one to the other in narrow, wavy lines, and hang the little bells on them for notes. Then the ends of the ribbons can trail down the sides of the programmes sort of fluttery and graceful. Pshaw! I can't make it look like anything, but I can see exactly how it ought to look."