ry able, but not willing
to bother with us beyond our lessons--he's so frightfully busy. I
suppose he feels that after training the Abbey choir, and conducting
choral societies to sing his cantatas, he doesn't care to trouble
himself over schoolgirls."

"He's a _real_ musician, though. I often wish I could study under him.
I'd love to play something with him, just once, to see how it feels to
have him accompany me. I think it would be so inspiring, it would just
make one let oneself go! I stay every Sunday evening after service at
the Abbey to hear his recitals. Occasionally somebody plays the violin,
and his accompaniment is simply gorgeous. He manages to make it sound
like a whole orchestra. I've never played with an organ. It's so much
fuller than a piano."

"Yes," agreed Ingred contemplatively.

Bess's remarks had given her an idea, but she did not want to
communicate it at once to her friend. It was nothing more or less than
that she should ask Dr. Linton to allow Bess to play with him some time
in the Abbey. She wondered whether she dared. His temper was still
decidedly irritable, and it was quite uncertain whether he would receive
the suggestion graciously, or snap her head off. She thought, however,
it was worth venturing.

"I'll try to catch him in an amiable mood," she decided.

In order not to arouse any grounds for irritation, she practiced
particularly well, and took her next work to him at a high stage of
excellence.

"Bravo!" he said, when she had finished her "Serenade." "I believe
you've really got some music in you! You brought out that crescendo
passage very well indeed. We want a little more delicacy in these
arpeggios, and then it will do. Your touch has improved very much
lately."

It was so seldom that her master launched forth into praise, that Ingred
colored with pleasure. Now certainly seemed the time, if ever--to put in
a word for Bess.

"Oh, Dr. Linton, may I ask you to do something for me?" she blurted out.

He thrust back his hair with a mock-pathetic gesture.

"What is it?" he inquired humorously. "Another autograph album? Or a
subscription? I've grown cautious by experience, and I don't answer
'Yes, thou shalt have it to the half of my kingdom!' I never give blind
promises."

"It isn't an autograph album (though I'd be glad to have your name in
mine, all the same, if I may bring it some day), it is this: I've a
friend at school, Bess Haselford, who plays the violin very wel