n recalled Tillie even more painfully.
After her first Sunday in Mr. Larsen's choir, Thea saw that she must
have a proper dress for morning service. Her Moonstone party dress might
do to wear in the evening, but she must have one frock that could stand
the light of day. She, of course, knew nothing about Chicago
dressmakers, so she let Mrs. Andersen take her to a German woman whom
she recommended warmly. The German dressmaker was excitable and
dramatic. Concert dresses, she said, were her specialty. In her
fitting-room there were photographs of singers in the dresses she had
made them for this or that SANGERFEST. She and Mrs. Andersen together
achieved a costume which would have warmed Tillie Kronborg's heart. It
was clearly intended for a woman of forty, with violent tastes. There
seemed to be a piece of every known fabric in it somewhere. When it came
home, and was spread out on her huge bed, Thea looked it over and told
herself candidly that it was "a horror." However, her money was gone,
and there was nothing to do but make the best of the dress. She never
wore it except, as she said, "to sing in," as if it were an unbecoming
uniform. When Mrs. Lorch and Irene told her that she "looked like a
little bird-of-Paradise in it," Thea shut her teeth and repeated to
herself words she had learned from Joe Giddy and Spanish Johnny.

In these two good women Thea found faithful friends, and in their house
she found the quiet and peace which helped her to support the great
experiences of that winter.

III

ANDOR HARSANYI had never had a pupil in the least like Thea Kronborg. He
had never had one more intelligent, and he had never had one so
ignorant. When Thea sat down to take her first lesson from him, she had
never heard a work by Beethoven or a composition by Chopin. She knew
their names vaguely. Wunsch had been a musician once, long before he
wandered into Moonstone, but when Thea awoke his interest there was not
much left of him. From him Thea had learned something about the works of
Gluck and Bach, and he used to play her some of the compositions of
Schumann. In his trunk he had a mutilated score of the F sharp minor
sonata, which he had heard Clara Schumann play at a festival in Leipsic.
Though his powers of execution were at such a low ebb, he used to play
at this sonata for his pupil and managed to give her some idea of its
beauty. When Wunsch was a young man, it was still daring to like
Schumann; enthusiasm f