e made me, oh, so happy, and hopeful--as I have never been
before in all my life. It seems like one of the fairy stories in which
one's wishes all come true."

"And if it were given you to have whatever you wished, what would you
ask for, Katrine?"

"To have father well. And then," her face became illuminated, "to study
with Josef."

"Josef?" He repeated the great name interrogatively.

"You have not heard of him?" she asked, incredulously.

He made a sign in the negative.

"He is the greatest teacher in the world," she explained, as though
there could be no doubting.

"Which is perhaps the reason I have never heard of him," he answered,
with a smile. "From your enthusiasm I am led to judge it is music which
he teaches."

"Yes," she answered; "but he teaches more than that. I knew a girl in
Paris who studied with him. She was quite intricate and self-seeking
when she began. And in six months he had changed her whole nature. She
became elemental and direct, and," she put her hands together and threw
them apart with the gesture which he knew so well, "and splendid! Like
Shakespeare's women!" she finished.

"Gracious Heaven, hear!" said Frank. "And does this miracle-worker live
uncrowned?"

"Ah, don't!" she said, her sincerity and enthusiasm reproving his
scoffing tone. "You see"--there was sweetness and an apologetic note in
her voice as she continued--"I believe in him so much it hurts to have
you speak so. Josef says that when woman developed to the point of
needing more education, there was nothing ready to give her except the
same thing they gave men; that because certain studies had been proven
all right for them they were given ready-made to women, and they didn't
fit. He believes women should be trained to develop the thing we call
their instinct. He says it's the psychic force which must in the end
rule the world. One of the girls in Paris said 'he stretched your
soul.'"

"I shall not permit you to go to him," Frank interrupted, gravely.

She regarded him, a question in her glance. "Why?" she asked.

"Because if your soul was any larger, Katrine, there would be no room
for it here below. It crowds the earth a little as it is. No," he
finished, with conviction, "you shall never go to study with Josef.
Music is all right. But that soul-stretching"--he smiled at this
phrase--"that would be all wrong for you. I want you exactly as you
are."

IV

THE PROMISE IN THE ROSE GARDEN

A silence