Fixing
their eyes upon a distant point, they listened, and as they listened,
their lips relaxed, their mouths opened slowly, their eyebrows lifted
--they heard, apparently, something too wonderful to be believed.
To Uncle Felix, still fumbling in his mind among unnecessary
questions, it seemed that the power of hearing had awakened for the
first time, or else had grown of a sudden extraordinarily acute. The
children merely listened and said "Oh, oh, oh!"; the sound they heard
was familiar, though never fully understood till now. For him, it was,
perhaps, the recovery of a power he had long forgotten. At any rate
he--heard. For the air passed through the tiny fronds of the feather--
through the veined web of its delicate resistance--round the hollow
stem and across the fluffy breadth of it--with a humming music as of
wind among the telegraph wires, only infinitely sweet and far away.
There were several notes in it, a chord--the music that accompanies
all flying things, even a butterfly or settling leaf, and ever fills
the air with unguessed melody.
It opened their power of hearing to a degree as yet undreamed of even
by the all-believing children.
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