The landlord of the house happened to be in the room; he came and spoke to her.
'You don't remember me, Miss Trent, but I knew your father well enough, and I knew you when you was a little 'un.

In those days I had the "Green Man" in the Cut; your father often enough gave us a toon on his fiddle.

A rare good fiddler he was, too! Give us a song now, for old times' sake.' Thyrza found herself preparing, in spite of herself.

She trembled violently, and her heart beat with a strange pain.

She heard the chairman shout her name; the sound made her face burn.
'Oh, what shall I sing ?' she whispered distractedly to Totty, whilst all eyes were turned to regard her.
'Sing "A Penny for your thoughts."' It was the one song she knew of her father's making, a half-mirthful, half-pathetic little piece in the form of a dialogue between husband and wife, a true expression of the life of working folk, which only a man who was more than half a poet could have shaped.
The seedy youth at the piano was equal to any demand for accompaniment; Totty hummed the air to him, and he had his chords ready without delay.
Thyrza raised her face and began to sing.