"Ach, I guess old maids need covers and aprons and things as well as them that marry. But now I guess I'll stop for to-night. I want to sew the hooks 'n' eyes on my every-day dress yet before I go to bed." "But before you go I want to ask you, to talk with you and daddy," said Phœbe, determined to decide the matter of studying music in Philadelphia. The uncertainty of it was growing to be a strain upon her. If there was no possibility of her dreams becoming realities she would put the thoughts away from her, but she wanted the question settled. "Now what----" Aunt Maria raised her spectacles to her forehead and looked at the girl, at her flushed cheeks, her eyes darkened by excitement. "So," the woman chuckled, "Phares picked up spunk once and asked you----" "Phares has nothing to do with it," Phœbe said curtly, her cheeks flushing deeper at the thought of the words she knew her aunt was ready to say. "This is my affair, and, of course, yours and daddy's." She turned to her father--"I want to study music." "Music? How--you mean to learn to play the organ?" he asked. "No. Oh, no! I mean to sing. Listen, please," she pleaded as she saw the bewildered look on his face. "You know I have always liked to sing. I have told you that many people have said my voice is good. So I'd like to go to Philadelphia and take lessons from a good teacher. May I? I can use the money I have in the bank, that my mother left me. I have about a thousand dollars. It won't take all of that for a few years' lessons. Daddy, if you'll only say I may go!" Her voice wavered suspiciously at the end. Jacob Metz looked at his daughter, then at the little low organ in the other room. Another Phœbe had loved to sit at that instrument and sing--perhaps he was too easy with the girl--but if she wanted to go away and take lessons---- Before he could answer the plea Maria Metz found her voice and spoke authoritatively: "Jacob Metz, goodness knows you're sometimes dumb enough to do foolish things, but you surely ain't goin' to leave Phœbe go off to learn singing! Throwing away money like that! And what good is to come of it, I'd like to know. Who put that dumb notion in her head, it just now vonders me! If she must go away somewheres to school, like all the young ones think they must nowadays, why not leave her go to Millersville or to Elizabethtown or to Lancaster to learn dressmakin'? But to Philadelphy--why, that's a big city! Anyhow, I can't see the use of all this flyin' around to school. We didn't get it when we was young, and we growed up, too. We was lucky if we got to the country school regular, and we got through the world so far!" "But Maria," her brother spoke gently, "you know things have changed since we went to school. The world don't stay the same."