and
expensive; Rosa ate much and wasted more. She must find somewhere a tiny
room with board, a humble little room but with a stove. It is folly
to practice with stiffened fingers. A room where her playing would not
annoy people, that was important.

She paid Rosa off that morning out of money left for that purpose. Rosa
wept. She said she would stay with the Fraulein for her keep, because it
was not the custom for young ladies to be alone in the city--young girls
of the people, of course; but beautiful young ladies, no!

Harmony gave her an extra krone or two out of sheer gratitude, but she
could not keep her. And at noon, having packed her trunk, she went down
to interview the Portier and his wife, who were agents under the owner
for the old house.

The Portier, entirely subdued, was sweeping out the hallway. He looked
past the girl, not at her, and observed impassively that the lease was
up and it was her privilege to go. In the daylight she was not so like
the angel, and after all she could only play the violin. The angel had
a voice, such a voice! And besides, there was an eye at the crack of the
door.

The bit of cheer of the night before was gone; it was with a heavy heart
that Harmony started on her quest for cheaper quarters.

Winter, which had threatened for a month, had come at last. The
cobblestones glittered with ice and the small puddles in the gutters
were frozen. Across the street a spotted deer, shot in the mountains the
day before and hanging from a hook before a wild-game shop, was frozen
quite stiff. It was a pretty creature. The girl turned her eyes away. A
young man, buying cheese and tinned fish in the shop, watched after her.

"That's an American girl, isn't it?" he asked in American-German.

The shopkeeper was voluble. Also Rosa had bought much from him, and Rosa
talked. When the American left the shop he knew everything of Harmony
that Rosa knew except her name. Rosa called her "The Beautiful One."
Also he was short one krone four beliers in his change, which is readily
done when a customer is plainly thinking of a "beautiful one."

Harmony searched all day for the little room with board and a stove and
no objection to practicing. There were plenty--but the rates! The
willow plume looked prosperous, and she had a way of making the plainest
garments appear costly. Landladies looked at the plume and the suit and
heard the soft swish of silk beneath, which marks only self-respect in
the