heaved a sigh of relief as the four gathered in front of the
music-racks at the other end of the room, tuning and scraping. Young
Mr. Saunders, evidently elated that his opportunity had come, leaned
toward Aunt Victoria and began talking in low tones. Once or twice
they laughed a little, looking towards Professor Kennedy.

Then old Reinhardt, gravely pontifical, rapped with his bow on his
rack, lifted his violin to his chin, and--an obliterating sponge was
passed over Sylvia's memory. All the queer, uncomfortable talk, the
unpleasant voices, the angry or malicious or uneasy eyes, the unkindly
smiling lips, all were washed away out of her mind. The smooth,
swelling current of the music was like oil on a wound. As she listened
and felt herself growing drowsy, it seemed to her that she was
being floated away, safely away from the low-ceilinged room where
personalities clashed, out to cool, star-lit spaces.

All that night in her dreams she heard only old Reinhardt's angel
voice proclaiming, amid the rich murmur of assent from the other
strings:

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE

One day at the end of a fortnight, Aunt Victoria and Arnold were late
in their daily arrival at the Marshall house, and when the neat surrey
at last drove up, they both showed signs of discomposure. Discomposure
was no unusual condition for Arnold, who not infrequently made his
appearance red-faced and sullen, evidently fresh from angry revolt
against his tutor, but on that morning he was anything but red-faced,
and looked a little scared. His stepmother's fine complexion, on
the contrary, had more pink than usual in its pearly tones, and her
carriage had less than usual of sinuous grace. Sylvia and Judith ran
down the porch steps to meet them, but stopped, startled by their
aspect. Aunt Victoria descended, very straight, her head high-held,
and without giving Sylvia the kiss with which she usually marked her
preference for her older niece, walked at once into the house.

Although the impressionable Sylvia was so struck by these phenomena,
that, even after her aunt's disappearance, she remained daunted and
silent, Judith needed only the removal of the overpowering presence
to restore her coolness. She pounced on Arnold with questions. "What
_you_ been doing that's so awful bad? I bet _you_ caught it all
right!"

"'Tisn't me," said Arnold in a subdued voice. "It's Pauline and old
Rollins that caught it. They're