enelope's lessons, and the
"exercises" were supplemented by occasional "pieces"--simple, yet
boasting a name. But when Penelope played "Down by the Mill," one heard
only the notes--accurate, rhythmic, an excellent imitation; when Hester
played it, one might catch the whir of the wheel, the swish of the
foaming brook, and almost the spicy smell of the sawdust, so vividly was
the scene brought to mind.

Many a time, now, the old childhood dreams came back to Hester, and her
fingers would drift into tender melodies and minor chords not on the
printed page, until all the stifled love and longing of those dreary,
colorless years of the past found voice at her finger-tips.

The stately marches and the rollicking dances of the cloud music came
easily at her beck and call--now grave, now gay; now slow and measured,
now tripping in weird harmonies and gay melodies.

Hester's blood quickened and her cheeks grew pink. Her eyes lost their
yearning look and her lips their wistful curves.

Every week she faithfully took her lesson of Penelope, and she practiced
only that when the children were about. It was when they were at school
and she was alone that the great joy of this new-found treasure of
improvising came to her, and she could set free her heart and soul on the
ivory keys.

She was playing thus one night--forgetting time, self, and that Penelope
would soon be home from school--when the child entered the house and
stopped, amazed, in the parlor doorway. As the last mellow note died
into silence, Penelope dropped her books and burst into tears.

"Why, darling, what is it?" cried Hester. "What can be the matter?"

"I--I don't know," faltered Penelope, looking at her mother with startled
eyes. "Why--why did n't you tell me?"

"Tell you?"

"That--that you could--p-play that way! I--I did n't know," she wailed
with another storm of sobs, rushing into her mother's arms.

Hester's clasp tightened about the quivering little form and her eyes
grew luminous.

"Dearie," she began very softly, "there was once a little girl--a little
girl like you. She was very, very poor, and all her days were full of
work. She had no piano, no music lessons--but, oh, how she longed for
them! The trees and the grass and the winds and the flowers sang all day
in her ears, but she could n't tell what they said. By and by, after
many, many years, this little girl grew up and a dear little baby
daughter came to her. She was still ver