fectly satisfied. He asked her to stand in the elbow of the piano, in
front of him, instead of behind him as she had been taught to do.

"Yes," said the hostess with feeling. "That other position is
barbarous."

Thea sang an aria from 'Gioconda,' some songs by Schumann which she had
studied with Harsanyi, and the "TAK FOR DIT ROD," which Ottenburg liked.

"That you must do again," he declared when they finished this song. "You
did it much better the other day. You accented it more, like a dance or
a galop. How did you do it?"

Thea laughed, glancing sidewise at Mrs. Nathanmeyer. "You want it
rough-house, do you? Bowers likes me to sing it more seriously, but it
always makes me think about a story my grandmother used to tell."

Fred pointed to the chair behind her. "Won't you rest a moment and tell
us about it? I thought you had some notion about it when you first sang
it for me."

Thea sat down. "In Norway my grandmother knew a girl who was awfully in
love with a young fellow. She went into service on a big dairy farm to
make enough money for her outfit. They were married at Christmastime,
and everybody was glad, because they'd been sighing around about each
other for so long. That very summer, the day before St. John's Day, her
husband caught her carrying on with another farm-hand. The next night
all the farm people had a bonfire and a big dance up on the mountain,
and everybody was dancing and singing. I guess they were all a little
drunk, for they got to seeing how near they could make the girls dance
to the edge of the cliff. Ole--he was the girl's husband--seemed the
jolliest and the drunkest of anybody. He danced his wife nearer and
nearer the edge of the rock, and his wife began to scream so that the
others stopped dancing and the music stopped; but Ole went right on
singing, and he danced her over the edge of the cliff and they fell
hundreds of feet and were all smashed to pieces."

Ottenburg turned back to the piano. "That's the idea! Now, come Miss
Thea. Let it go!"

Thea took her place. She laughed and drew herself up out of her corsets,
threw her shoulders high and let them drop again. She had never sung in
a low dress before, and she found it comfortable. Ottenburg jerked his
head and they began the song. The accompaniment sounded more than ever
like the thumping and scraping of heavy feet.

When they stopped, they heard a sympathetic tapping at the end of the
room. Old Mr. Nathanmeyer had come to