ing, horses cantering,
happy-looking people in smart bonnets, in gorgeous mantles, driving about
everywhere; children would be running up and down the paths in the Park,
flower-sellers would stand offering their innocent wares to the
passengers. Jill would sit entranced by her mother's window watching
them; the sunshine, the glitter, the hubbub, intoxicated her; she made up
stories by the dozen, as her dark eyes followed the gay equipages. When
Fraeulein summoned her she went away reluctantly; the stories got into
her head, and stopped there all the time she laboured through that long
sonata.

'Why are your fingers all thumbs to-day, Fraeulein?' Herr Schliefer
would demand gloomily. Jill, who was really fond of the stern old
professor, hung her head and blushed guiltily. She had no excuse to
offer: her girlish dreams were sacred to her; they came gliding to her
through the most intricate passages of the sonata, now with a _staccato_
movement,--brisk, lively,--with fitful energy, now _andante_, then
_crescendo, con passione_. Jill's unformed girlish hands strike the
chords wildly, angrily. '_Dolce, dolce_,' screams the professor in her
ears. The music softens, wanes, and the dreams seem to die away too.
'That will do, Fraeulein: you have not acquitted yourself so badly after
all.' And Jill gets off her music-stool reluctant, absent, half awake,
and her day-dream broken up into chaos.

CHAPTER III

CINDERELLA

As I opened the schoolroom door a half-forgotten picture of Cinderella
came vividly before me.

The fire had burnt low; a heap of black ashes lay under the grate; and by
the dull red glow I could see Jill's forlorn figure, very indistinctly,
as she sat in her favourite attitude on the rug, her arms clasping her
knees and her short black locks hanging loosely over her shoulders. She
gave a little shrill exclamation of pleasure when she saw me.

'Ah, you dear darling bear, do come and hug me,' she cried, trying to get
up in a hurry, but her dress entangled her.

'Where is Fraeulein?' I asked, pushing her back into her place, while I
knelt down to manipulate the miserable fire. 'Jill, you look just like
Cinderella when the proud sisters drove away to the ball. My dear, were
you asleep? Why are you sitting in the dark, with the fire going out, and
the lamp unlighted? There, it only wanted to be stirred; we shall have
light by which to see other's faces directly,'

'Fraeulein has a headache and has gone