Sometimes, when Melba, or Caruso, or some world-renowned
favorite was there, she would take Elizabeth for an hour, usually slipping
out just after the favorite solo with noticeable loftiness, as if the
orchestra were the common dust of the earth, and she only condescended to
come for the soloist. So Elizabeth had scarcely known the delight of a
whole concert of fine orchestral music.
She heard Lizzie talking.
"Yes, that's Walter Damrosch! Ain't that name fierce? Grandma thinks it's
kind of wicked to pernounce it that way. They say he's fine, but I must
say I liked the band they had last year better. It played a whole lot of
lively things, and once they had a rattle-box and a squeaking thing that
cried like a baby right out in the music, and everybody just roared
laughing. I tell you that was great. I don't care much for this here kind
of music myself. Do you?" And Jim and Joe both agreed that they didn't,
either. Elizabeth smiled, and kept on enjoying it.
Peanuts were the order of the day, and their assertive crackle broke in
upon the finest passages. Elizabeth wished her cousin would take a walk;
and by and by she did, politely inviting Elizabeth to go along; but she
declined, and they were left to sit through the remainder of the afternoon
concert.
After supper they watched the lights come out, Elizabeth thinking about
the description of the heavenly city as one after another the buildings
blazed out against the darkening blue of the June night.
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