"Now, ain't that great!" she said, and her voice sounded boyish just like Jane's. "Why, we'll have to get a pianna. I heard you could get 'em cheap in the cities sometimes--old-fashioned ones, you know. I heard they have so many old-fashioned ones that they have to burn 'em to get rid of 'em, and they even give 'em away sometimes. I wonder, could we find out and get hold of one?" "I guess 'twould cost too much to get it here," said Bob practically. "My! I wisht we had one. Say, Lizzie, 'f we had a pianna would you show me how to read notes?" "Of course," said Betty. "Well, we'll get one somehow! We always do when we need anything awfully. Look at the bathtub! Good-night! I'm goin' to earn one myself!" declared Bob. "Mrs. Crosby's gotta get a new one. P'raps she'll sell us her old one cheap." That was the way the music idea started, and nothing else was talked of at the table for days but how to get a piano. Then one day Emily came rushing home from school all out of breath, her eyes as bright as stars, and her cheeks like roses. "Mrs. Barlow came to our school to-day and talked to the teacher, and I heard her say she was going away for the winter. She's going to store her goods in the Service Company barn, but she wants to get somebody to take care of her piano. I stepped right up and told her my mother was looking for a piano, and we'd be real careful of it, and she's just delighted; and--it's coming to-morrow morning at nine o'clock! The man's going to bring it!" She gasped it out so incoherently that they had to make her tell it over twice to get any sense out of it; but when Bob finally understood he caught his little sister in his arms and hugged her with a big smacking kiss: "You sure are a little peach, Em'ly!" he shouted. "You're a pippin of the pippins! I didn't know you had that much nerve, you kid, you! I sure am proud of you! My! Think of havin' a pianna! Say, Betty, I can play the base of chopsticks now!" The next evening when Betty got home from the Hathaways there was the piano standing in the big space opposite the windows in the dining-room. Ma had elected to have it there rather than in the front room, because it might often be too cold in the front room for the children to practice, and besides it wouldn't be good for the piano. So the piano became a beloved member of the family, and Betty began to give instructions in music, wondering at herself that she knew how, for her own music had been most desultory, and nobody had ever cared whether she practiced or not. She had been allowed to ramble among the great masters for the most part unconducted, with the meagerest technique, and her own interpretation. She could read well and her sense of time and rhythm were natural, else she would have made worse work of it than she did. But she forthwith set herself to practicing, realizing that it might yet stand her in good stead since she had to earn her living.