letting the fingers of her left hand pick out its detail
upon the pillow which she had lately thrown in a passion against the
wall because it had been so hot and she so miserably uncomfortable.

Sissy had begun the second part, the changing bass of which had been
poor Split's _pons asinorum_. It was the part to which Sissy had always
given a dramatic touch--partly because, it being simpler music than she
was accustomed to, she could safely do so, and partly because it
irritated Irene, to whom the most forthright interpretation was
difficult. Her foot slipped now, through force of habit, upon the hard
pedal, and in a moment she heard the whirring of Aunt Anne's skirts.

"Sissy, are you crazy, you--" she heard behind her, and then there came
a sudden, an unaccountable stop.

Sissy turned. Behind and above Miss Madigan towered tall old Dr.
Murchison. He had come back, as usual, up the long flight of steps, for
his forgotten spectacles. One of his hands was clapped with good-humored
firmness over the lady's mouth; the other was pointing to Split,
sleeping like a Madigan again, while over Aunt Anne's head the doctor
nodded and bobbed encouragingly to Sissy, like a benignant musical
conductor deprived of the use of his arms.

Sissy turned again to the piano. It was a beautiful opportunity for her
to affect disgust with the situation; to register a silent, but
expressive, exception to being compelled to entertain Irene; and to
pose, not only before her aunt but before the doctor, too, as a very
important personage, whose services were in urgent demand, and who
yielded under protest. But as a matter of fact she was too happy. There
was no misconceiving the light that illumined the doctor's round, rosy
face. Something her undisciplined, childish imagination had been
coquetting with, as an untried experience, though never admitting its
full, dread significance, was carried out of her horizon by the shining
look of success in old Murchison's face; something that shook her strong
little body with a long shiver, as she realized, in the second when she
could almost feel the lift of its dark wings taking flight, the thing
that might have been.

So Sissy played "In Sweet Dreams" "with expression."

* * * * *

Later she played it, and over and over again, with the salt tears
trickling down her nose and splashing on the keys; played it with tired,
fat fingers and a rebellious, burning heart. But thi