nous hands held near
the chimney to shelter them), amidst the joyful applause of all the
girls and the laughter of the men. A sound of hammering rose, and then a
sound of boards rending from the clutch of nails, and then a sound of
pieces thrown loosely into a pile. There was a continual flutter of
women's dresses and emotions, and this did not end even when the piano,
disclosed from its casing and all its wraps, was pushed indoors, and
placed against the parlor wall, where a flash of lamp-light revealed it
to Gaites in final position.

He lingered still, in the shelter of some barberry-bushes at the cottage
gate, and not till the last cry of gratitude had been answered by the
unanimous disclaimer of the men rattling away in the wagon did he feel
that his pursuit of the piano had ended.

VII.

"Can you tell me, madam," asked Gaites of an obviously approachable
tabby next the chimney-corner, "which of the musicians is Miss Desmond?"

He had hurried back to the Inn, and got himself early into a dress suit
that proved wholly inessential, and was down among the first at the hop.
This function, it seemed, was going on in the parlor, which summed in
itself the character of ball-room as well as drawing-room. The hop had
now begun, and two young girl couples were doing what they could to
rebuke the sparse youth of Lower Merritt Inn for their lack of eagerness
in the evening's pleasure by dancing alone. Gaites did not even notice
them, he was so intent upon the ladies of the orchestra, concerning whom
he was beginning to have a troubled mind, not to say a dark misgiving.

"Oh," the approachable tabby answered, "it's the one at the piano. The
violinist is Miss Axewright, of South Newton. They were at the
Conservatory together in Boston, and they are such friends! Miss Desmond
would never have played here--intends to take pupils in Portland in the
winter--if Miss Axewright hadn't come," and the pleasant old tabby
purred on, with a velvety pat here, and a delicate scratch there. But
Gaites heard with one ear only; the other was more devotedly given to
the orchestra, which also claimed both his eyes. While he learned, as
with the mind of some one else, that the Desmonds had been very much
opposed to Phyllis's playing at the Inn, but had consented partly with
their poverty, because they needed everything they could rake and scrape
together, and partly with their will, because Miss Axewright was such a
nice girl, he was painful