te had been quiescent; for books were few. Still, she had read
whatever she could lay hands on, and for the past half-year or more she
had fared like a little pig in a clover field. Since Christmas, she was
one of the few permitted to do morning practice on the grand piano in
Mrs. Strachey's drawing-room--an honour, it is true, not overmuch
valued by its recipients, for Mrs. Gurley's bedroom lay just above, and
that lady could swoop down on whoever was weak enough to take a little
rest. But Laura snapped her fingers at such a flimsy objection; for
this was the wonderful room round the walls of which low, open
bookshelves ran; and she was soon bold enough, on entering, hastily to
select a book to read while she played, always on the alert to pop it
behind her music, should anyone come into the room.

For months, she browsed unchecked. As her choice had to be made with
extreme celerity, and from those shelves nearest the piano, it was in
the nature of things that it was not invariably a happy one. For some
time she had but moderate luck, and sampled queer foods. To these must
be reckoned a translation of FAUST, which she read through, to the end
of the First Part at least, with a kind of dreary wonder why such a
dull thing should be called great. For her next repast, she sought hard
and it was in the course of this rummage that she had the strangest
find of all. Running a skilled eye over the length of a shelf close at
hand, she hit on a slim, blue volume, the title of which at once
arrested her attention. For, notwithstanding her fourteen years, and
her dabblings in Richardson and Scott, Laura's liking for a real
child's book was as strong as it had ever been; and A DOLL'S HOUSE
seemed to promise good things. Deftly extracting the volume, she struck
up her scales and began to read.

This was the day on which, after breakfast, Mrs. Gurley pulverised her
with the remark: "A new, and, I must say, extremely interesting,
fashion of playing scales, Laura Rambotham! To hold, the forte pedal
down, from beginning to end!"

Laura was unconscious of having sinned in this way. But it might quite
well be so. For she had spent a topsy-turvy, though highly engrossing
hour. In place of the children's story she anticipated, she had found
herself, on opening the book, confronted by the queerest stuff she had
ever seen in print. From the opening sentence on. To begin with, it was
a play--and Laura had never had a modern prose play in her