Ellen could not determine whether it was the prospect of supper or Lucilena’s terrible threat which urged to promptness on Billy’s part, but she went smiling into the kitchen with her bunch of parsley. “Isn’t it funny,” she said, “that I’ve made two acquaintances to-day, one each side the garden?” And she told of her interview with Billy. “He’s a funny little tyke,” declared Miss Rindy. “What with the notions he gets from Lucilena and the ones his own imagination supplies he is as full of fancies as an egg is of meat. He is left to Lucilena a great deal, for his mother is forever on the gad. A flyaway sort of somebody she is, sweet as honey and kind as can be, but no housekeeper. Everything goes by sixes and sevens in that house, meals at any time, feast one day, famine the next. I don’t see how Barry stands it, or Lucilena either, but they all get along as comfortably as a basket of puppies. It’s none of my business, though my fingers do itch sometimes to get at those rooms and put them in order. You’ll like Marietta Hale, you can’t help it, and I don’t know but I’d rather than not that she played the part of a fearful example to you.” Ellen laughed. “Do you think I require that she should?” Miss Rindy smiled in her queer one-sided way. “I can’t tell yet; you’re a new broom. Now, suppose you come here and see how I make this gravy, then look at the biscuits in the oven. There’s nothing I like better for supper than fried tomatoes and hot biscuits.” Not long after supper the bell rang. Miss Rindy went to the door. “Why, Jeremy!” Ellen heard her exclaim. “What brought you here? Come right in. Glad to see you.” Mr. Todd, with a violin under his arm, limped in. Ellen looked up brightly. “Oh, Mr. Todd, isn’t this nice!” she cried. “You’ve brought your violin. Are you going to play for us?” “Why, no, that isn’t exactly what I came for,” he explained. “I thought maybe you would like me to lend you this and permit me to help you with it once in a while.” “But——” Ellen looked apprehensively at her cousin. “It’s very kind of you,” she went on hesitatingly. “I don’t know that I approve of Ellen wasting her time with a fiddle,” objected Miss Rindy. “What good would it do her?” “It would be perhaps a pleasure,” answered Mr. Todd gently. “Fiddle-dee-dee! Pleasure, indeed! Ellen and I can’t afford useless pleasures. She will have her living to make, and it’s dollars to doughnuts she will never make it twanging a fiddle. Besides, I don’t know that I could stand hearing the thing squeaking out scales.” Mr. Todd’s clear blue eyes met Ellen’s hazel ones. “Music might not be such a bad profession for her,” he said reflectively. “She may have a very good voice and—— Do you know anything at all about the piano, child? Have you ever had any lessons?” He turned to Ellen. “Oh, yes, I studied with Mother.”