d she dropped her face in her hands.

Esther's own voice was unsteady. "Then we will move out to this spot at
once, Betty. And don't you ever dare tell me that I am not to think of
you in connection with my music, when I realize how much you have given
up for me. Oh, yes, I know you have enjoyed Europe and Berlin and all of
our interesting experiences. Yet somehow I don't believe that you will
ever be so fond of any place in the world as you are of your old home in
Woodford. You see that is the way I comfort myself and Dr. Ashton about
your new foreign admirers. You wouldn't, Betty, ever seriously care for
anyone who lives in Europe, would you?" Esther asked so anxiously that
her sister laughed, refusing to make a reply.

CHAPTER VII

Das Rheingold

A girl sat on a flat rock beside a small stream of water, evidently
drying her hair in the rays of the sun, for it hung loose over her
shoulders and shone red and gold and brown, seeming to ripple down from
the crown of her head to the ground. She was entirely alone and a close
group of trees formed a kind of green temple behind her. It had been an
extremely warm day so that even the birds were resting from song and
from labor.

Suddenly the girl tore into small pieces the letter that she had been
writing, tossing them into the air like a troop of white butterflies.

"There is no use of my trying to do anything sensible this afternoon,"
Betty Ashton sighed, "I am so happy over being in the country once more
with nothing to do but to do nothing. I was dead tired of all those
people at the pension, of Fritz and Franz and all the rest of them. It
is lovely to be alone here in the German forests----"

Then unexpectedly Betty Ashton straightened up, looking about her in
every possible direction in a puzzled fashion while hurriedly arranging
her hair. For although she could see no one approaching, she could hear
an unmistakable sound, a kind of mellow whistling, then flute-like notes
and afterwards a low throbbing, as though the wings of imprisoned things
were beating in the air.

Betty stared through the open spaces between the trees, since from that
direction the sound was now approaching. But when and where had she
heard that peculiar music before? However, the Germans were such a
strangely musical race that probably any one of her neighbors could
play.

Then with a smothered expression of vexation, the girl got up on her
feet and took a few steps forward. Th