ck soon we shall starve?"

At that moment, from somewhere--it seemed to us from up-stairs--a
sudden flood of sweetest sound poured goldenly through that sad,
dim, dusty house, as if a blithe spirit had slipped in unawares and
was bidding us welcome. For a few wonderful moments the exquisite
music filled the dark old place and banished gloom and neglect and
decay; then, with a pattering scamper, as of the bare, rosy feet of
a beloved and mischievous child making a rush for his crib, it went
as suddenly as it had come. There was nothing to break the silence
but the swishing downpour of the outside rain.

When I could speak: "It came from up-stairs! Somebody's playing a
violin up-stairs. I'm going up-stairs to find out who it is."

Alicia demurred: "It may be a real person, Sophy!--a real person
with a real violin. But I'd rather believe it's Ariel's self, come
out of those pink crape-myrtles. Don't go up-stairs, please, Sophy!"

"Nonsense!" said I. "Somebody's played a violin and I mean to know
who he is!"

And up-stairs I went, into a huge dark hall, with the cross-passage
cutting it, and closed doors everywhere. At the front end was a most
beautiful window, opening doorlike upon a tiny iron bird-cage of a
balcony, hung up Southern fashion under the roof of the pillared
front porch. At the rear a more ordinary door opened upon the broad
veranda that ran the full width of the house. Both door and window
were closed, and bolted on the inside, and the big, dark, dusty
rooms which I resolutely entered were quite empty, their fireplaces
boarded up, their windows close-shuttered. There was no sign
anywhere of violin or player. I went down-stairs just as wise as I
had gone up.

"I told you it was Ariel!" Alicia stood by the open window--our
windows are sunk into the walls, and cased with solid black walnut
as Impervious to decay as the granite itself--and leaned out to the
wet and dripping garden.

"Sophy," said she, in her high, sweet voice that carries like a
thrush's. "Sophy, the best thing about this world is, that the best
things in it aren't really _real_. This is one of its enchanted
places. Sycorax used to live in this house: that's what you feel
about it yet. But now she's gone, her spell is lifting, and Hynds
House is going to come alive and be young again!"

"At least," I grumbled, "admit that the dust inside and the rain
outside and the weeds and mud are real; and I'm really hungry!"

"Me too!" Alicia as