The firelight in the pretty wee grate was certainly far more romantic, for it flickered and flared on their faces as they sat around it, while at their backs it was all shadows Rembrandtesque. Antony would fain have conversed, or even told stories, but the noise was every now and then so terrific that it was impossible to do so with any amount of profit. But to sit and look at each other's faces, or the play of the light thereon, grew a little irksome at last; then quietly, and without being told, Lotty took down her violin-case and opened it almost with a species of reverence, for no little girl ever looked half so well after her doll as she took care of her beautiful instrument. There was a soft silk handkerchief over it, visible when the case was opened, and this carefully lifted off revealed the violin itself, its breast between the _f_-holes white with the powdered resin from bow and strings. That bow itself was worth more than many a good violin would fetch in the market. The child smiled when she took this baby of hers out of its velvet-lined bassinet. She looked for a moment at her left-hand finger-tips as if to make sure the nails were correctly trimmed, then glanced at the fire as if fearful that a piece of coal might tumble out and dust arise. And now with exquisite tenderness she drew the bow across the strings before adjusting them to tune. Every string that Lotty possessed was well stretched before being tried, so that there was seldom much to do in the tuning way. Fastidious, indeed, would he have been who could not listen to-night with pleasure to the music this infant prodigy elicited from her favourite instrument. But part of Lotty's power to please lay in the fact that she never played much on any evening, having apparently a latent dread of tiring an audience. To-night, at all events, Antony was not tired; in fact, he could have sat and listened to the sweet strains until long past midnight. And, oh! methinks that if harps are twanged as angels sing in heaven, the violin itself must lead. But the music, weird and dreamy, ceased at last, and Lotty put the child of her heart back again into its cosy case. Well, all that fearful night the wind raged and howled with unabated violence, and it was probably owing to this, and to the rocking and tossing of his palace-upon-wheels, that Antony slept so long next morning, for when he flashed his electric light upon his watch, lo! he found it was nearly eight o'clock. He leapt out of bed and lit his lamp, and had just finished dressing when rat-tat-tat came to the back door. It was not until then that Antony noticed that the wind had gone down completely, the storm-spirit had spent its violence, and through the frozen panes of the skylight the beams of the rising sun were trying to struggle. So hard still was the frost that these panes of glass were not only covered by fern-fronds and flowers, but with powder. 'I thought, Mr Blake, it would be a pity to disturb you before.'