And he hurried out. CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE. It was a splendid grand piano whose tones rang, through the house, and brought poor Becky, with her pale, anaemic, tied-up face, from the lower regions, to stand peering round corners and listening till the final chords of some sonata rang out, when she would dart back into hiding, but only to steal up again as slowly and cautiously as a serpent, and thrust out her head from the gloom which hung forever upon the kitchen stairs, when Kate's low, sweet voice was heard singing some sad old ballad, a favourite of her father's, one which brought up the happy past, and ended often enough in the tears dropping silently upon the ivory keys. Such a song will sometimes draw tears from many a listener; the melody, the words, recollections evoked, the expression given by the singer, all have their effect; and perhaps it was a memory of the baker (or milkman) which floated into poor, timid, shrinking Becky, for almost invariably she melted into tears. "She says it's like being in heaven, ma'am," said Sarah Plant, giving voice upstairs to her child's strained ideas of happiness. "And really the place don't seem like the same, for, God bless you! you have made us all so happy here." Kate sighed, for she did not share the happy feeling. There were times when her lot seemed too hard to bear. Garstang was kindness itself; he seemed to be constantly striving to make her content. Books, music, papers, fruit, and flowers--violets constantly as soon as he saw the brightening of her eyes whenever he brought her a bunch. Almost every expressed wish was gratified. But there was that intense longing for communion with others. If she could only have written to poor, amiable, faithful Eliza or to Jenny Leigh, she would have borne her imprisonment better; but she had religiously studied her new guardian's wishes upon that point, yielding to his advice whenever he reiterated the dangers which would beset their path if James Wilton discovered where she was. "As it is, my dear child," he would say again and again, "it is sanctuary; and I'm on thorns whenever I am absent, for fear you should be tempted by the bright sunshine out of the gloom of this dull house, be seen by one or other of James Wilton's emissaries, and I return to find the cage I have tried so hard to gild, empty--the bird taken away to another kind of captivity, one which surely would not be so easy to bear." "No, no, no; I could not bear it!" she cried, wildly. "I do not murmur. I will not complain, guardian; but there are times when I would give anything to be out somewhere in the bright open air, with the beautiful blue sky overhead, the soft grass beneath my feet, and the birds singing in my ears."