Before this house Christie began to play. He could hardly have told you why he chose it; perhaps he had no reason for doing so, except that it had such a pretty garden in front, and Christie always loved flowers. His mother had once bought him a penny bunch of spring flowers, which, after living for many days in a broken bottle, Christie had pressed in an old spelling-book, and through all his troubles he had never parted with them. And thus, before the house with the pretty garden, Christie began to play. He had not turned the handle of the organ three times, before two merry little faces appeared at a window at the top of the house, and watched him with lively interest. They put their heads out of the window as far as the protecting bars would allow them, and Christie could hear all they said. "Look at him," said a little girl, who seemed to be about five years old; "doesn't he turn it nicely, Charlie?" "Yes, he does," said Charlie, "and what a pretty tune he's playing!" "Yes," said the little girl, "it's so cheerful. Isn't it, nurse?" she added, turning round to the girl who was holding her by the waist, to prevent her falling out of the window. Mabel had heard her papa make a similar remark to her mamma the night before, when she had been playing a piece of music to him for the first time, and she therefore thought it was the correct way to express her admiration of Christie's tune. But the tune happened to be "Poor Mary Ann," the words of which the nurse knows very well indeed. And as Mary Ann was nurse's own name, she had grown quite sentimental whilst Christie was playing it, and had been wondering whether John Brown, the grocer's young man, who had promised to be faithful to her for ever and ever more, would ever behave to her as poor Mary Ann's lover did, and leave her to die forlorn. Thus she could not quite agree with Miss Mabel's remark, that "Poor Mary Ann" was so cheerful, and she seemed rather relieved when the tune changed to "Rule Britannia." But when "Rule Britannia" was finished, and the organ began "Home, sweet Home," the children fairly screamed with delight; for their mother had often sung it to them, and they recognized it as an old favorite; and with their pretty, childish voices, they joined in the chorus: "Home, sweet home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home." And as poor Christie looked up at them, it seemed to him that they, at least, _did_ know something of what they sang.