She did not believe what the teacher said of her hand. Eventually she would grow to that playing, she thought, and she would surprise her master. “I will go to the end of everything, I’ll look over the edge of the last precipice of music,” she said inwardly. “I’ll look over the last precipice of music and say, ‘God!’ I’ll say ‘Where are you?’ I’ll climb all the musical stairs there are.” * * * * * Anthony lingered in a state of half-illness, in and out of his bed. One day his distress for some missing paper seemed acute and she offered him her help. He was unwilling to share with her. “Your business is the violin now,” he said, sinking weakly into his chair by the fire, but in a moment after he was sickened with faintness and she helped him back to the bed. Two days later Theodosia found that she had determined to search among the papers in the back upper room to try to find the truth about their house, that she would take upon herself the necessity which awaited her as her grandfather visibly failed. Siver had spoken to her of his wages, which, he said, had not been paid for five weeks. He must have his money, he said, speaking respectfully, embarrassed, for he needed clothing. He must have his pay or he would have to find another place. Theodosia paid him the money from a small sum which she had, and during that same evening she took a mass of papers and letters from the old desk and carried them to her room to examine them before the fire. Many of the letters had been tied into bundles and these she examined first because they offered a modicum of order in the chaos of the mass. Among them were letters of affection which ran through a long gamut of admiration and passion to apathy, letters which had passed between her father and mother.