n her health permits, and make music for hours together."

Mademoiselle Therese uttered the last words on the threshold of the
house, and Barbara did not know whether to laugh or to cry at such a
story being told in such a way. The door was opened by the old maid,
Jeannette, who wore a quaint mob cap and spotless apron, and who
followed the visitors into the room, and, having introduced them to her
mistress, seated herself in one corner and took up her knitting as
"company," Mademoiselle Therese whispered to Barbara.

The latter thought she had never before seen such a charming old lady
as Mademoiselle Vire, who now rose to greet them, and she wondered how
any one who had known her in the "many-churched Rouen days" could have
parted from her.

She talked for a little while to Mademoiselle Therese, then turned
gently to Barbara.

"Do you play, mademoiselle?"

"A little," the girl returned hesitatingly; "not enough, I'm afraid, to
give great pleasure."

But Mademoiselle Vire rose with flushed cheeks.

"Ah! then, will you do me the kindness to play some accompaniments?
That is one of the few things my good Jeannette cannot do for me," and
almost before Barbara realised it she was sitting on a high-backed
chair before the piano in the little _salon_, while Mademoiselle Vire
sought eagerly for her music.

The room was so small that, with Mademoiselle Therese and the maid
Jeannette--who seemed to be expected to follow her mistress--there
seemed hardly room to move in it, and Barbara was all the more nervous
by the nearness of her audience.

It certainly was rather anxious work, for though the little lady was
charmingly courteous, she would not allow a passage played wrongly to
go without correction. "I think we were not quite together there--were
we?" she would say. "May we play it through again?" and Barbara would
blush up to her hair, for she knew the violinist had played _her_ part
perfectly. She enjoyed it, though, in spite of her nervousness, and
was sorry when it was time to go.

"You will come again, I hope?" her hostess asked. "You have given me a
happy time." Then turning eagerly to Jeannette, she added, "Did I play
well to-day, Jeannette?"

The quaint old maid rose at once from her seat at the door, and came
across the room to put her mistress's cap straight.

"Madame played better than I have ever heard her," she replied.

Barbara had been so pleased with everything that she went again a few