father; or that
she was now minus a purse.

But immediately after this duty was done she wrote another letter; to
Miss Asenath this one, and it was overflowing with spirits and
exuberant retrospect of all that had happened to her since she left the
Farm. Into this effort she put her encounter with the strange man, Mrs.
Cherry and Helen Louise and Peter and Mr. Cherry; how nearly she and
Ross had missed connection and how terribly she had felt; the loss of
her purse, and her fear that the check had been gone also; just how
exciting this glorious Visit had already proved.

It was a long letter and a breathless one, with many missing words all
down the pages, for Arethusa's mind was working so much faster than she
could move her pen that it was quite impossible to get in every
syllable. But Miss Asenath would understand.

Arethusa described at length the wonders of this big house where she
was a guest, and the superlative Beauty of the room she had been given
for her very own. She told of that Anniversary Dinner, and the
Artichoke; of all her troubles with the strange food and the
bewildering number of knives and forks and spoons. She also told Miss
Asenath of Elinor's music.

Elinor made sounds to issue from a piano that Arethusa had never
dreamed that instrument was capable of accomplishing. With her slender
fingers on those black and ivory keys, the big, black box had sobbed
and laughed, and even talked ordinarily at her bidding.

Arethusa left her chair, and crept nearer and nearer to the musician
until she was almost on top of the piano bench herself, in her absorbed
interest. Her hands clasped over her heart to still the curious little
ache the music made her to feel there, with her lips parted slightly
and her eyes like big stars; she had scarcely dared breathe. She wished
suddenly for Timothy, for Timothy worshipped music. He loved even to
hear her, Arethusa, play. And she was sure he had never heard any music
such as this.

It was not what Miss Letitia would have called playing "with
expression"; it was not as she had tried to teach Arethusa. Elinor's
long, white hands just seemed to wander over the keys, as softly
aimless as if she had no slightest idea what the next note was to be;
they strayed from themes which aroused to an ecstasy into simple
melodies that left a haunting sense that they had not been finished.
Sometimes the piano scarcely seemed to sound; sometimes it crashed in
grand chords, as if th