She lifted her head high, and looked at him like a lioness, at being
ordered.

Ashmead replied by putting the paper before her and giving her the pen.

She cast one more reproachful glance, then signed like a lamb.

"Now," said she, turning fretful, "I want a piano."

"You shall have one," said he coaxingly. He went to the landlord and
inquired if there was a piano in the house.

"Yes, there is one," said he.

"And it is mine," said a sharp female voice.

"May I beg the use of it?"

"No," said the lady, a tall, bony spinster. "I cannot have it strummed on
and put out of tune by everybody."

"But this is not everybody. The lady I want it for is a professional
musician. Top of the tree."

"The hardest strummers going."

"But, mademoiselle, this lady is going to sing at the opera. She _must_
study. She _must_ have a piano.

"But [grimly] she need not have mine.