Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

124 ^y MUSICAL EXPERIENCES
regard to the piano that I could observe every move-
ment of the player. It was some minutes before the
music began—an interval which gave me an ample
opportunity of [taking in all around me. The large
folding-doors between his sleeping-room and the one
I was sitting in had been thrown open ; some of the
furniture had been moved back ; and there were a
good many girls and several young men (all, as I
afterwards learned, pupils of the Deppe school) sitting
both in the room and along the wall at either side of
the doorway. There was a subdued hum of whisper-
ing voices, with which the Kapellmeister's presence
did not seem in any way to interfere. There was
something in the atmosphere of the room, in its
arrangements, and, above all, in the manner of Herr
Deppe, at once restful, stimulating, and homelike.
I could have quite imagined any one of the school
sitting down to play there just as if he or she were at
home.
After a few minutes Herr Deppe called out, ' Willie,
Willie, you may begin ;' on which a young girl in a
simple print dress, with her hair closely plaited, and
brushed off a large and open brow—a gentle-looking
girl, with a very slight figure, who looked as happy
and free from all anxiety as if her task had been to
decorate the room with flowers, or pour out tea for a
school fete, instead of being the exponent of a
' method '—walked quietly into the room without
making a bow, or looking around with the slightest