t on one of
my punctual days," said Celia.

She was standing on the doorstep, at the entrance to the musical
department of Thurston's. He had not noticed before the fact that the
sun was shining. The full glare of its strong light, enveloping her
figure as she stood, and drawing the dazzled eye for relief to the bower
of softened color, close beneath her parasol of creamy silk and lace,
was what struck him now first of all. It was as if Celia had brought the
sun with her.

Theron shook hands with her, and found joy in the perception, that his
own hand trembled. He put boldly into words the thought that came to
him.

"It was generous of you," he said, "to wait for me out here, where all
might delight in the sight of you, instead of squandering the privilege
on a handful of clerks inside."

Miss Madden beamed upon him, and nodded approval.

"Alcibiades never turned a prettier compliment," she remarked. They went
in together at this, and Theron made a note of the name.

During the ensuing half-hour, the young minister followed about even
more humbly than the clerks in Celia's commanding wake. There were a
good many pianos in the big show-room overhead, and Theron found himself
almost awed by their size and brilliancy of polish, and the thought of
the tremendous sum of money they represented altogether. Not so with the
organist. She ordered them rolled around this way or that, as if they
had been so many checkers on a draught-board. She threw back their
covers with the scant ceremony of a dispensary dentist opening paupers'
mouths. She exploited their several capacities with masterful hands,
not deigning to seat herself, but just slightly bending forward, and
sweeping her fingers up and down their keyboards--able, domineering
fingers which pounded, tinkled, meditated, assented, condemned, all in
a flash, and amid what affected the layman's ears as a hopelessly
discordant hubbub.

Theron moved about in the group, nursing her parasol in his arms, and
watching her. The exaggerated deference which the clerks and salesmen
showed to her as the rich Miss Madden, seemed to him to be mixed with a
certain assertion of the claims of good-fellowship on the score of her
being a musician. There undoubtedly was a sense of freemasonry between
them. They alluded continually in technical terms to matters of which he
knew nothing, and were amused at remarks of hers which to him carried no
meaning whatever. It was evident that the you