There was a sharp ring at the door and a servant brought a note to Lottie, who, feeling intuitively that it in some way concerned her greatly, tore it open at once, her face flushing and then turning pale as she read that the Misses Barrows had just received news that their mother was dying, and they must start for home that night if they would see her alive. It was a bitter disappointment, and Lottie felt as if that poor woman dying in that little village in Ohio had somehow injured her. But there was no help for it now. The Barrowses were out of the question, and in her utter helplessness and distress, she turned to John to know what they should do. “It is a failure, of course,” she said, and the great tears stood in her fine eyes. John hesitated a moment and glanced toward his wife, and then to her utter dismay replied: “Not necessarily an entire failure, perhaps. I think it just possible that Mrs. Craig can play the accompaniments and, possibly, sing as well.” “Oh, John,” Kitty gasped, while Lottie’s black eyes flashed a curiously doubtful glance at her and Lottie’s voice said: “_She—your wife_,” as if even to her the idea was preposterous. “Yes, my wife,” John answered, proudly. “She has a fine voice and was accounted a good musician at home.” “And will she—will you try?” Lottie asked, willing, now that her first feeling of surprise was over, to grasp at a straw. “Dear Mrs. Craig, will you try? It is a positive failure if you do not. I might ask that horrid Mrs. Banks, but her voice is like a peacock’s. Do. Mrs. Craig, and I will love you forever.” She had her arm around Kitty’s waist and was drawing her toward the piano where in a moment poor, bewildered Kitty found herself seated with piles of music before her and a crowd of strange people staring at her and asking each other who that little nun-like woman was, and where the Misses Barrows were. Very softly Kitty played over a few of the more difficult places, and Lottie, who was a judge of fine playing, began to feel confidence in her new performer, and whispered encouragingly: “You are doing splendidly,” while to herself she groaned: “Oh, if I only knew what her voice was.” She did know ere long, and as Kitty’s clear, birdlike tones began to fill the room, growing sweeter, and clearer and stronger as Kitty became more confident of herself, she could have hugged the little woman in her joy, and did kiss her when the musicale was over and pronounced a perfect success. “You are a darling, a second Nilsson. I shall never forget this, never,” she said, while many of her friends crowded around Kitty, asking for an introduction and thanking her for the treat she had given them. “And to think she never tried the music before! It is wonderful,” Lottie kept saying while others, too, expressed their surprise that she could play such difficult music at sight.