r wreath made of all the hair of seventeen dead Andersons and five
live ones--no, no, I don't mean _all_ the hair, but hair from all
seventeen and five. Nurse Sarah used to tell me about it.

Well, as I said, all the shiver places were there, and I shivered
again as I looked at them; then I crossed over to Mother's old piano,
opened it, and touched the keys. I love to play. There wasn't any
music there, but I don't need music for lots of my pieces. I know them
by heart--only they're all gay and lively, and twinkly-toe dancy.
_Marie_ music. I don't know a one that would be proper for _Mary_ to
play.

But I was just tingling to play _something_, and I remembered that
Father was in the observatory, and Aunt Jane upstairs in the other
part of the house where she couldn't possibly hear. So I began to
play. I played the very slowest piece I had, and I played softly at
first; but I know I forgot, and I know I hadn't played two pieces
before I was having the best time ever, and making all the noise I
wanted to.

Then all of a sudden I had a funny feeling as if somebody somewhere
was watching me; but I just couldn't turn around. I stopped playing,
though, at the end of that piece, and then I looked; but there wasn't
anybody in sight. But the wax cross was there, and the coffin plate,
and that awful hair wreath; and suddenly I felt as if that room was
just full of folks with great staring eyes. I fairly shook with
shivers then, but I managed to shut the piano and get over to the door
where the light was. Then, a minute later, out in the big silent hall,
I crept on tiptoe toward the stairs. I knew then, all of a sudden, why
I'd felt somebody was listening. There was. Across the hall in the
library in the big chair before the fire sat--_Father_! And for 'most
a whole half-hour I had been banging away at that piano on marches and
dance music! My! But I held my breath and stopped short, I can tell
you. But he didn't move nor turn, and a minute later I was safely by
the door and halfway up the stairs.

I stayed in my room the rest of that evening; and for the second time
since I've been here I cried myself to sleep.

* * * * *

_Another week later_,

Well, I've got them--those brown and blue serge dresses and the
calfskin boots. My, but I hope they're stiff and homely enough--all of
them! And hot, too. Aunt Jane did say to-day that she didn't know but
what she'd made a mistake not to get gingham