es, not at
all abashed at being discovered listening. "It's better than any
circus band I ever heard. It's like Jenny Lind when the sun is shining
and she has had a leaf of fresh lettuce. It makes me feel in my heart
like soda water feels in my nose, all prickly and light," vaguely.
"It's--it's wonderful! Take this place," she moved generously away
from the crack that Miss Proctor might put her ear to it. "You can
hear better. When I grow up I want to play just like that." Mary Rose
always wanted to do what other people could do.

"Do you?" Miss Proctor looked at her and forgot that she had
considered children unmitigated nuisances. She actually opened the
door. "Come in," she said, "and tell Mrs. Matchan that you like her
music."

And the result of Mary Rose's attempt to put in words the feeling she
had in her heart that was like soda water in her nose, was that Mrs.
Matchan went down to the Donovans' and asked if she might be
permitted--permitted--to give Mary Rose music lessons.

"You could have knocked me down with the pin feather of a chicken,"
Aunt Kate told Uncle Larry. "I supposed, of course, she'd come tearin'
down to find fault with Mrs. Rawson for runnin' her sewin' machine last
night an' I was all ready to tell her that each of us has some rights,
but no, it was to offer to give Mary Rose lessons on her piano. She
says the child's got talent an' feelin' an' she'd like to see how she'd
express them. She had to tell me twice before I could take it in. It
isn't often that folks come down here to give a favor. Seems if they
only find the way when they want to complain. I never knew Mrs.
Matchan to do anythin' for anybody before an' we've lived under the
same roof for most two years now."

She had another surprise when Bob Strahan tramped down the basement
stairs with a big box of Annie Keller chocolates under his arm. He
solemnly presented the candy to Mary Rose.

"In payment of a debt," he explained gravely when Aunt Kate and Uncle
Larry stared and Mary Rose giggled. "She helped me with a very
important bit of work," he added, although the addition did not make
the matter any clearer to the Donovans nor to Mary Rose.

"You bet she helped me," he told Miss Carter when he went up and met
her in the lower hall. They had encountered each other on the stairs
several times since the day of Jenny Lind's adventure and had made the
amazing discovery that they had formerly lived within fifteen m