ou_. You
were not in the room, but stuck away off there in a corner. I'll tell
you what I will do, Mr. Dick Crawford. Let me help you out here to a
sofa in _this_ room--the air will not hurt you, but do you good,--and I
promise to play for you the very tunes you wish. If not--"

"Oh, you need not mention the alternative," said Crawford, remembering
the preceding performance and afraid of a repetition. "Come here, give
me your arm, and I _will_ come out for a few minutes."

"Bravo!" thought wild Joe, but she did not say it. Very gently and
tenderly she assisted the invalid from his sofa and to a standing
position, and then quite as tenderly through the door and to the sofa
that stood nearly opposite the piano. Then she ran back and _closed the
sliding-doors_ again, for fear, as she said, that there might be too
much draught of air on the invalid. So far, so good! Richard Crawford
had been coaxed out of his room and into the parlor that he scarcely
entered once a month. What next?

"Play me a wreath of Scottish melodies," said Crawford, with the feeling
of the old blood coming up within him. "And be sure that you throw in
'Roy's Wife' and 'Annie Laurie.' Will you?--That's a good girl?" Dick
spoke more cheerfully than had been his late habit, and settled himself
to an easy position on the sofa with more the air of a man ready to
enjoy, than he had for some time manifested.

"Has there been an incubus suddenly lifted from his breast?" Joe Harris
asked herself, noticing the change.

If there was anything that she really _could_ play on the piano, her
forte lay in those very Scottish airs, which she certainly rendered with
exquisite feeling and with skill enough for the moderate demands of that
class of music. And on this occasion she felt bound to exert herself, to
repay the obligation of Crawford's coming out to hear her, though her
brain was all in a whirl for fear something might occur to drive the
patient back into his room, and her fingers, as they touched the white
keys, itched to be busying themselves about the cushions of the
invalid's sofa. For a few moments, while "Within a Mile of Edinboro'
Town," "Roy's Wife," "Charlie is My Darling," "Bonnie Doon" and half a
dozen others of the Scottish wreath were dripping from her fingers, and
while Richard Crawford was enjoying his favorite music better than he
had before enjoyed anything for many a week,--for this few moments Joe
Harris was nonplussed. How should she ge