But the kitchen door had been opened by Mrs. Shepard again--this time timorously and incompletely--and Mrs. Baron was gone. Baron climbed two flights of stairs before he came upon the object of his next search. Bonnie May was in the attic. She was all eagerness when she saw him. “Do you know what happened to-day?” she began. Baron stopped abruptly. “Happened!” he echoed, unworded speculations again flooding his mind. “Oh, nothing wrong. It’s just--Mrs. Baron gave me my first music lesson.” “Music lesson!” he echoed, and then: “Was _that_ all?” “Isn’t it enough?” She came close to him and whispered: “I’m to be ‘cultivated.’” He frowned. “I don’t like the word. Who said so?” “I wouldn’t mind about a word. Honestly, it wasn’t so bad. I’ve often thought I’d like to be able to hit a few high spots on the piano. Sometimes a little thing like that means ever so much to you. Imagine yourself having the lead in a play with a lot of love-making in it. You have a line like this--to the leading man: ‘You’ll be like all the rest. You’ll forget me among all those gay scenes.’ Don’t you see how much it helps if you can say it sitting on a piano-stool, and winding up by turning to the keyboard and trifling with it softly? You don’t need to play well. It wouldn’t do to play really well. Just a little, you know. Absent-mindedly, with your head down. That’s what I want to be able to do.” Baron had pulled a chair close to the window. “And so you took a music lesson?” he asked. He was recalling the serenely inefficient manner in which his mother played certain familiar hymns. It did not occur to him that she would attempt to teach Bonnie May anything but this class of music. Indeed, he felt sure she would not have been able to recall any other kind. “I’m glad you don’t object to it,” he said. Presently he added, without very much interest in the subject: “After all, some of the old hymns are very pretty.” “Yes; but you know I’m not going to play hymns.” “Oh, you’re not! What does mother expect to teach you, then?” “At first she thought hymns would do; but when I explained to her that I wouldn’t care to play them she said we could take up something else.” Baron regarded her steadily. She was obviously withholding something. “Bonnie May!” he remonstrated. “You didn’t have another disagreement, did you?” “It was more like an argument--and I must say she behaved beautifully.” “And did you behave ‘beautifully,’ too?” She had drawn her chair close to the window and was looking out, so that he saw, chiefly, a small shoulder and a profile which was quite eloquent of independence and courage. “Yes, I think I did. Of course, it was harder for me than for her. You see, I had to be It, as the saying is. Yes, that’s how to express it. She had framed the game up, and I had to be It.” “What--what really happened?”