gleefully replied Bel, "if he thinks the school is so good now. It'll be
twice as good then; an' such singin' as was never heard before in any
school-house on the island, I'll warrant me. I'm to have the piano over
for the day to the school-house. Archie and Sandy'll move it in a big
wagon, to save me payin' for the cartin'; an' I'm to pay a half-pound
for the use of it if it's not hurt,--a dear bargain, but she'd not let
it go a shilling less. And, to be sure, there is the risk to be
counted. An' she knew I 'd have it if it had been twice that. But I got
it out of her that for that price she was to let me have all the school
over twice a week, for two months before, to practise. So it's not too
dear. Ye'll see what ye'll hear then."

It had been part of Little Bel's good luck that she had succeeded in
obtaining board in the only family in the village which had the
distinction of owning a piano; and by paying a small sum extra, she had
obtained the use of this piano for an hour each day,--the best
investment of Little Bel's life, as the sequel showed.

It was a bitter winter on Prince Edward Island. By New Year's time the
roads were many of them wellnigh impassable with snow. Fierce winds
swept to and fro, obliterating tracks by noon which had been clear in
the morning; and nobody went abroad if he could help it. New Year's Day
opened fiercest of all, with scurries of snow, lowering sky, and a wind
that threatened to be a gale before night. But, for all that, the
tying-posts behind the Wissan Bridge school-house were crowded full of
steaming horses under buffalo-robes, which must stamp and paw and
shiver, and endure the day as best they might, while the New Year's
examination went on. Everybody had come. The fame of the singing of the
Wissan Bridge school had spread far and near, and it had been whispered
about that there was to be a "piece" sung which was finer than anything