afternoon; I'll do it the first
thing in the morning." And rash Ned went to rest on Miss Pamela's
feather-bed, in a room smelling of withered rose leaves. The bed was
hung with old chintz curtains; the wall-paper displayed a pattern of
large faded flowers. The swallows made a soft twittering in the wide
chimney, as he closed his eyes with a glow of satisfaction at the
thought of the kind action (and very clever one, too!) he had undertaken
to perform.

He found it harder than he had expected. The screws were rusty and hard
to move, and the tuning key was old, and _would_ slip. But before noon
he announced his task completed, and Miss Pamela and her two nieces
gathered near, their faces beaming with interest.

The piano was small and narrow, with legs so thin as to suggest to Ned
that it needed pantaloons. It had been the pride and glory of Miss
Pamela's girlhood, and was still, in her eyes, an excellent and valuable
instrument, although she, being of a modest turn of mind, was willing to
acknowledge that it had probably seen its best days.

"It will be _so_ nice to have it in good tune again!" she said, in a
tone of great satisfaction. "I declare, Master Ned, what a thing it is
to have such advantages as you boys are having!--to be able to turn your
hand to 'most anything! Now, then, Kitty, play 'Days of Absence.'"

Kitty played it. But what could be the meaning of that fearful jumble of
strange sounds? Surely that time-honored melody (modern hymn-book,
"Greenville") never sounded so before. What was the matter? Miss
Pamela's face fell a little, but she still smiled, and said,

"You had better get your notes, Kitty; you are playing carelessly."

Kitty got her notes, and played carefully, but the result was still, to
say the least, most astonishing and unsatisfactory.

"Try 'Come, Haste to the Wedding,' then." But the jig ran riot to such
an extent that Kitty lost her place, stumbled, and finally came to a
dead stop.

Poor Miss Pamela listened with a face of deepening dismay, while Ned
stood still, with cold chills running down his back, as he was suddenly
struck with the appalling idea that he might have undertaken something
entirely beyond his abilities, and that the ruin of the cherished old
piano might be the possible dreadful result.

"Try a scale, Kitty," again suggested Miss Pamela, with a polite effort
to look tranquil.

Oh, that scale--what capers it cut! what unheard-of combinations of
fearful soun