id not rely very implicitly on her
own habits of order.

There was great confusion when the piano was carried up; it took time,
too, to move the bed, sofa, and other articles of furniture to make room
for the instrument. But all this came to an end at last, and quiet once
more prevailed. The pale stranger must be tired. Soon there was not a
step, not a sound, overhead.

There is a difference between the silence which is full and that which
is empty.

Magnhild dared not stir. She waited, listened. Would the tones of the
piano soon fall upon her ear? The stranger was a composer, so the
landlord had said, and Magnhild thought, too, she had read his name in
the newspaper. How would it be when such a person played? Surely it
would seem as though miracles were being wrought. At all events,
something would doubtless ring into her poor life which would long give
forth resonance. She needed the revelation of a commanding spirit. Her
gaze wandered over the flowers which decorated her window, and on which
the sun was now playing; her eyes sought the "Caravan in the Desert,"
which hung framed and glass covered by the door, and which suddenly
seemed to her so animated, so full of beautifully arranged groups and
forms. With ear for the twittering of the birds in the opposite
neighbor's garden and the sporting of the magpies farther off in the
fields, she sat in blissful content and waited.

Through her content there darted the question, "Will Skarlie be pleased
with what you have done? Is there not danger of injury to the new sofa
and the bed too? The stranger is an invalid, no one can tell"--She
sprang to her feet, sought pen, ink, and paper, and for the first time
in her life wrote a letter to Skarlie. It took her more than an hour to
complete it. This is what she wrote:--

I have let the rooms over the sitting-room and bed-chamber to a
sick man who plays the piano. The price is left to you.

I have had one of the new sofas (the hair-cloth) carried
up-stairs and one of the spring beds. He wants to be
comfortable. Perhaps I have not done right.
MAGNHILD.

She had crossed out the words: "Now I shall have an opportunity to hear
some music." The heading of the letter had caused her some trouble; she
finally decided to use none. "Your wife," she had written above the
signature, but had drawn her pen through it. Thus fashioned, the letter
was copied and sent. She