"You father always had a great fondness for that. I don't know," she went
on, after a short pause, "whether you understand that your father was one
of my old beaux--at least, I always counted him with the rest. I was a
gay girl in my day, and I wanted to make the list as long as I could; so
I counted in the quiet ones as well as the noisy ones. Your father was
one of the quiet ones."

"So I should have imagined," said Jane. Her maiden delicacy was just a
shade affrighted at the turn the talk was taking.

"When I was playing he would sit there by the hour and never say a word.
My banner piece was really a fantasia on 'Sonnambula'--a new thing here;
I was the first one in town to have it. There were thirteen pages, and
there was always a rush to see who should turn them. Your father didn't
often enter the rush, but I really liked his way of turning the best of
any. He never turned too soon or too late; he never bothered me by
shifting his feet every second or two, nor by talking to me at the hard
places. In fact, he was the only one who could do it right."

"Yes," said Jane, with an appreciative sigh; "that's pa--all over."

Mrs. Bates was twisting her long sleeves around her wrists. Presently she
shivered slightly. "Well, really," she said, "I don't see that this place
is much warmer than the other; let's try the library."

In this room our antique and Spartan Jane was made to feel the need of
yet stronger props to hold her up against the overbearing weight of
latter-day magnificence. She found herself surrounded now by a sombre and
solid splendor. Stamped hangings of Cordova leather lined the walls,
around whose bases ran a low range of ornate bookcases, constructed with