Rhoda sat down. She could sing well at sight, thanks to the pains of her country singing-school master, and she had that real genius for music which is born with one in five hundred. She caught the spirit of the song directly, and in half an hour had mastered the accompaniment; and Isa listened with honest admiration. "Oh dear!" said she, half envyingly, as Rhoda ceased. "If I had such a voice as that, I wouldn't mind my singing lessons. You don't have to pick it out a bit. You know just how to make your voice go by looking at the notes, don't you?" "Of course," answered Rhoda. "I can sing any easy music at sight, and this is very easy, though it wants care and taste. I think it is lovely, though the words are not much." "It is a rather pretty notion, though, to think of the poor things being turned into a harp," said Isa, who had a certain vein of poetry in her. "Now, I should never turn to anything but a miserable hand-organ, or at the best a musical-box, to go when it is wound up. Do play something else, Rhoda. Try this waltz. I thought it was very pretty when Mr. Harvey played it." This was only the first of a series of surreptitious practisings. It became a regular thing for Rhoda to sit down to the school-room piano and occupy at least half of Isa's lesson-time playing over her pieces. It annoyed Isa that Rhoda would always play the scales first: "What is the use of them? They are not a bit pretty." "No, but they are useful, and I want to improve myself. Now I will play this waltz, and then you must play it after me. I must give you some help to pay for the use of the piano, you know; and besides, Mr. Harvey will make a fuss and tell your father if you don't know your lesson. Come, now, do your best." Then Isa would sit down, and by dint of patient and careful teaching and overlooking, Rhoda would get her creditably through the piece. "There! That is a great deal better than ever you played it before." "Mr. Harvey says I improve," remarked Isa. "He told pa so. Pa found fault because he gave me such easy lessons, and Mr. Harvey told him he did it that I might acquire facility of execution. He said it was a part of his system to teach the true method of execution upon easy pieces, that the pupil's mind might be occupied with but one thing at a time; and then pa gave in directly. I think it is a part of his system to get through the lessons and earn his money the easiest he can," added Isa, shrewdly; "but I don't care as long as it saves me work. Come, now, sing this song." And Rhoda sung the song, comforting herself by the thought that she really was helping Isa and doing nobody any hurt—a comfort which answered tolerably well till she came to say her prayers, when it vanished away and left her with a miserably burdened conscience and a sore heart.