"Silk?" said Patty wonderingly, and her eyes grew more round. "Yes, silk--dress, you know," said Jared, jumping up again from the harmonium, and walking excitedly about the room. "Only think if I could get it--Jared Pellet--no, Mr Jared Pellet; or ought it to be esquire, eh, Patty? Organist of St Runwald's. But there," he continued, with a grim smile, "this is counting the chickens before they are hatched, and when there has not been one solitary peck at the shell. Heigho, Patty, if the wind has not been and blown down my card house." "Is any one at home?" said a high-pitched, harsh voice, as the door was quietly opened, and a little yellow-looking Frenchman entered, a tasselled cane in one hand, a cigarette being held between the fingers of the other, but only to be changed to the hand which held the cane, that its owner might raise the pinched hat worn on one side of his head, and salute gravely the two occupants of the room. "Aha! the good-day to you bose. The good Monsieur Pellet is well? and you, my dear child, you do bloom again like the flowers." Patty smiled as she held out her hand; the little Frenchman gravely raising it to his lips, and then crossing to where Jared had stood, looking ten years older, till, reseating himself at his bench, he began to make the metal tongue vibrate furiously, sending a very storm of wind through it, so rapidly he worked his foot; now making the note too sharp, now too flat, and taking twice as long as usual to complete his task. "No, no, mon ami; he is too sharps--now too flats again. Aha, it is bad!" exclaimed the visitor, dropping cane and cigarette to thrust both fingers into his ears as Jared brought forth a most atrocious shriek from the tortured tongue. "My ear's gone completely, I believe," exclaimed Jared, looking in a bewildered way at his visitor. "Ah, no, no; try him again--yais, try him again;" and the visitor leaned over the performer. "_Ta-ta_" he hummed, nodding his head, and beating time with a finger. "Better--yes, better--better still--one leetle touch, and--aha, it is done--so!" he exclaimed triumphantly, as the little note now sounded clear and pure. "And now I must have two string for my violin. They do wear out so fast." Which was a fact, and nothing could have more fully displayed Monsieur Canau's friendship than his constant usage of Jared Pellet's strings, best Roman by name, worst English by nature. "Why do you not come to-day?" he continued, as Patty opened a tin canister, and emptied a dozen of the transparent rings of catgut upon the table. "I could not leave," said Patty, hastily. "We are anxious about the organ." "Yes, oui, of course; and the good papa will get it?" "He has not written yet," said Patty, dolefully.