The girls were tired when they went to bed. The life of routine had fatigued¹ them; although, of course, it would soon cease to do so. Notwithstanding, therefore, Miss Tredgold’s startling announcement with regard to Nancy King, they slept soundly; and the next morning when nine o’clock struck they all appeared in the schoolroom, their persons neat, their hair carefully brushed, and each pair of eyes beaming with intelligence. Even Penelope looked her very best in a clean brown holland frock, and she went quite creditably through her alphabet, and did not squiggle her pot-hooks quite as much as she had done on the previous day.  
Miss Tredgold was in an excellent humor. She praised the girls, told them she was much pleased with their performances, and said further that, if only they would meet her half-way by being attentive⁴ and intelligent and earnest in their work, she on her part would do all in her power to make lessons agreeable; she would teach them in a way which would be sure to arouse their interest, and she would vary the work with play, and give them as gay a time as the bright weather and their own happy hearts would permit.
 
The girls felt quite cheerful; they even began to whisper one to another that Aunt Sophia was developing more and more good points as days went on.
 
On that afternoon a great excitement was in store, for a 50beautiful new piano was to arrive from Broadwood’s, and Aunt Sophia announced that she meant to play on it for the benefit of the entire household that evening.
 
“For, my dears,” said that good lady, “I have forgotten neither my playing nor my singing. I will sing you old-fashioned songs to-night, and I quite hope that I may lure⁵ your father from his retirement⁶. There was a time when he was musical—very musical.”
 
“The dad musical!” cried Briar. “Aunt Sophia, what do you mean?”
 
“It is true, Rose. In the days long ago, when your mother and he and I spent happy times together, he played his violin better than any other amateur that I happen to know.”
 
“There is an old violin in one of the attics,” said Verena. “We have never touched it. It is in a case all covered with dust.”
 
“His Stradivarius,” murmured Miss Tredgold. “Oh dear! How are the mighty⁷ fallen! My dears, you had better say no more to me about that or I shall lose my temper.”
 
The girls could not imagine why Miss Tredgold’s eyes grew full of a certain mistiness⁸ and her cheeks were very pink with color. The next moment she looked full at her nieces.
 
“When your mother died she took a great deal away with her,” she said. “What would you have done, poor children! if I had not been able to come to the rescue? It does seem almost impossible that your father, my brother-in-law, has forgotten to play on his Stradivarius.”
 
“Well, aren’t you glad you comed?” said Penelope, marching up and standing² before the good lady. “Don’t you like to feel you are so useful, the grand piano coming, and all the rest? Then you has us under your thumb. Don’t you like that?”
 
“I don’t understand you, Penny. You are talking in a very naughty way.”
 
“I aren’t. I are only saying what nursey said. Nursey said last night, ‘Well, well, drat it all! They are under her thumb by this time.’ I asked nursey what it meant, and she said, ‘Miss Penny, little girls should be seen, and not heard.’ Nursey always says that when I ask her questions that I want special to know. But when I comed down this morning I asked Betty what being under your thumb meant, and she said, ‘Oh, lor’, Miss Penny! You had better look out, miss. It means what you don’t like, miss.’ Then she said, Aunt Sophy, that old ladies like you was fond of having little girls under their thumbs. So I ’spect you like it; and I hope you won’t squeeze us flat afore you have done.”
 
Miss Tredgold had turned very red.
 
“How old are you, Pen?” she said when the loquacious⁹ child became silent.51
 
Penelope tossed her head. “You knows of my age quite well.”
 
“Then I will just repeat the remark made by your excellent nurse—‘Little girls should be seen, and not heard.’ I will add to that remark by saying that little girls are sometimes impertinent. I shall not say anything more to-day; but another time, if you address me as you have just done, I shall be obliged to punish you.”
 
“And if I don’t dress you,” said Penelope—“if I’m awful good—will you give me sugar-plums?”
 
“That is a treat in the very far distance,” said Miss Tredgold.—“But now, girls, go out. The more you enjoy this lovely air the better.”
 
They did all enjoy it; after their hard work—for lessons were hard to them—freedom was sweet. With each moment of lesson-time fully³ occupied, leisure was delicious. They wandered under the trees; they opened the wicket-gate which led into the Forest, and went a short way into its deep and lovely shade. When lunch-bell sounded they returned with hungry appetites.
 
The rest of the day passed pleasantly. Even preparation hour was no longer regarded as a hardship. It brought renewed appetites to enjoy tea. And in the midst of tea a wild dissipation occurred, for a piano-van came slowly down the rutty lane which led to the front avenue. It stopped at the gates; the gates were opened, the piano-van came up the avenue, and John and two other men carried the beautiful Broadwood into the big drawing-room.
 
Miss Tredgold unlocked it and touched the ivory keys with loving fingers.
 
“I will play to you to-night when it is dusk,” she said to the girls.
 
After this they were so eager to hear the music that they could scarcely eat their dinner. Mr. Dale now always appeared for the evening meal. He took the foot of the table, and stared in an abstracted way at Aunt Sophia. So fond was he of doing this that he often quite forgot to carve the joint¹⁰ which was set before him.
 
“Wake up, Henry,” said Miss Sophia in her sharp voice; “the children are hungry, and so am I.”
 
Then the student would shake himself, seize the knife and fork, and make frantic¹¹ dashes at whatever the joint might happen to be. It must be owned that he carved very badly. Miss Tredgold bore it for a day or two; then she desired the parlor-maid to convey the joint to the head of the table where she sat. After this was done the dinner-hour was wont¹² to progress very satisfactorily. To-day it went quickly by. Then Verena went up to her aunt.
 
“Now, Aunt Sophy,” she said, “the gloaming has come, and music is waiting to make us all happy in the drawing-room.”52
 
“I will play for you, my dears,” said Aunt Sophia.
 
She was just leaving the room when she heard Verena say:
 
“You love music, father. Do come into the drawing-room. Aunt Sophia has got her new piano. She means to play on it. Do come; you know you love music.”
 
“Indeed, I do nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Dale.
 
He pushed his gray hair back from his forehead and looked abstractedly at Miss Sophia, who was standing in the twilight¹³ just by the open door.
 
“You remind me, Sophia——” said Mr. Dale.
 
He paused and covered his eyes with his hand.
 
“I could have sworn that you were she. No music, thanks; I have never listened to it since she died. Your mother played beautifully, children; she played and she sang. I liked her songs; I hate the twaddle of the present day. Now I am returning to my Virgil. My renderings¹⁴ of the original text become more and more full of light. I shall secure a vast reputation. Music! I hate music. Don’t disturb me, any of you.”
 
When Mr. Dale reached his study he sank into his accustomed chair. His lamp was already lit; it burned brightly, for Miss Tredgold herself trimmed it each morning. His piles of books of reference lay in confusion by his side. An open manuscript was in front of him. He took up his pen. Very soon he would be absorbed by the strong fascination¹⁵ of his studies; the door into another world would open and shut him in. He would be impervious¹⁶ then to this present century, to his present life, to his children, to the home in which he lived.
 
“I could have sworn,” he muttered to himself, “that Alice had come back. As Sophia stood in the twilight I should scarcely have known them apart. She is not Alice. Alice was the only woman I ever loved—the only woman I could tolerate in my house. My children, my girls, are none of them women yet, thank the Almighty¹⁷. When they are they will have to go. I could not stand any other woman but Alice to live always in the house. But now to forget her. This knotty¹⁸ point must be cleared up before I go to bed.”
 
The doors of the ancient world were slowly opening. But before they could shut Mr. Dale within their portals there came a sound that caused the scholar to start. The soft strains of music entered through the door which Verena had on purpose left open. The music was sweet and yet masterly. It came with a merry sound and a certain quick rhythm that seemed to awaken¹⁹ the echoes of the house. Impossible as it may appear, Mr. Dale forgot the ancient classics and the dim world of the past. He lay back in his chair; his lips moved; he beat time with his knuckles²⁰ on the arms of his chair; and with his feet on the floor. So perfect was his ear that the faintest wrong note, or harmony 53out of tune²¹, would be detected by him. The least jarring sound would cause him agony. But there was no jarring note; the melody was correct; the time was perfect.
 
“I might have known that Alice——” he began; but then he remembered that Alice had never played exactly like that, and he ceased to think of her, or of any woman, and became absorbed in those ringing notes that stole along the passage and entered by the open door and surrounded him like lightsome fairies. Into his right ear they poured their charm; in his left ear they completed their work. Virgil was forgotten; old Homer might never have existed.
 
Mr. Dale rose. He got up softly; he walked across the room and opened the door wide. There was a very bright light streaming down the passage. In the old days this passage was always dark; no one ever thought of lighting²² the lobbies and passages at The Dales. The master of the house wondered dimly at the light; but at the same time it gave him a sense of comfort.
 
Suddenly a voice began to sing:
 
“I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows.”
 
The voice was sweet, pure, and high. It floated towards him. Suddenly he stretched out his arms.
 
“I am coming, Alice,” he said aloud. “Yes, I am coming. Don’t call me with such insistence²³. I come, I tell you; I come.”
 
He ran down the passage; he entered the central hall;............