"You see," she concluded, "that I am now being shown that the talent which has been given to me must be used. You have no idea of the flattering things that have been said to me. The Managing Director told me that if I stayed in London, he could give me continual work, and the pay he would offer me staggers me. It would be foolish, dear Cousin Thor, would it not, to go back to the Miss Buchans and wind wool and read magazine articles and drive a car when I could earn double here, and have such a lovely time? It is so exquisite, feeling I have a right and a duty to spend hours at the piano. I have always dreamt of playing to an audience, and they seem to think that I could manage a solo or two of my own later on. Mr. Buchan amuses me so much—he thinks he has a right to choose the dress I am to wear when I play for him. I have to buy new gowns up here. Mrs. St. Lucas has taken me to her dressmaker, and it seems to me that my first earnings will be swallowed up with frocks. He insisted upon my wearing a kind of moonlight blue when I made my first appearance in public. And then he wanted me to be in white and gold. But I stuck at that. It was not retiring enough for an accompanist. "Oh, Cousin Thor, how he plays! He pours his whole soul out! I think his violin comes first in the world with him. He makes me thrill and quiver when he plays, and I could weep from sheer ecstasy. "I must tell you, that the other day I met Jim in Bond Street. Mr. Buchan and I were going to the Academy. It was a surprise. Jim came with us, but it was uncomfortable being three, and they glared at each other like angry dogs over a bone. I needn't tell you I was the bone. And the poor bone wished herself miles away from them both. "Then Jim came to see me yesterday, and Mrs. St. Lucas welcomed him sweetly, but when we were alone, he trotted out the old story, and I thought hard, of the home he would give me, and the fun, and the affection. And the managing. But he told me in the midst of it all, that the musical world was a rotten environment for any girl, and that he would never let any one he knew play in public! I thanked him and dismissed him, and cried when he had gone. "Why do you all try to manage me? Mr. Buchan does—but I am in his pay, so he is my master. I think you are better than you used to be. Perhaps it is that you are rather tired of me and do not feel it worth while. I thought you might be angry when you heard I was here, but your letters say so little. They're as mild as toast and water. I don't want you to object to what I am doing, for I mean to go on doing it, and I am writing to the Miss Buchans to-day to break with them. Mrs. St. Lucas wants me to go to Vienna with her next month. What do you think of that! I mean to study music there, and next autumn I am assured of plenty of work.