But the whole Black Rim was talking about it. Mary Hope felt sure that they were saying ill-natured things behind her back. Never did she meet man or woman but the piano was mentioned. Sometimes she was asked, with meaning smiles, how she had come to stand in so well with the Devil's Tooth. She knew that they were all gossiping of how Lance Lorrigan had taken her home from the dance, with Belle Lorrigan's bronco team. She had been obliged to return a torn coat to Mrs. Miller, and to receive her own and a long lecture on the wisdom of choosing one's company with some care. She had been obliged to beg Mrs. Miller not to mention the matter to her parents, and the word had gone round, and had reached Mother Douglas--and you can imagine how pleasant that made home for Mary Hope. Because she was lonely, and no one seemed willing to take it away, she kept the piano. She played it, and while she played she wept because the Rim folk simply would not understand how little she wanted the Lorrigans to do things for her. And then, one day, she hit upon a plan of redeeming herself, for regaining the self-respect she felt was slipping from her with every day that the piano stood in the schoolhouse. She would give a series of dances--they would be orderly, well-behaved dances, with no refreshments stronger than coffee and lemonade!--and she would sell tickets, and invite every one she knew, and beg them to come and help to pay for the school piano. Even her mother approved that plan, though she did not approve dances. "But the folk are that sinfu' they canna bide wi' any pleasure save the hoppin' aboot wi' their arms around the waist of a woman," she sighed. "A church social wad be far more tae my liking, Hope--if we had only a church!" "Well, since there isn't any church, and people won't go to anything but a dance, I shall have to get the money with dances," Mary Hope replied with some asperity. The subject was beginning to wear her nerves. "Pay for it I shall, if it takes all my teacher's salary for five years! I wish the Lorrigans had minded their own business. I've heard nothing but piano ever since it came there. I hate the Lorrigans! Sometimes I almost hate the piano." "Ye shud hae thought on all that before ye accepit a ride home wi' young Lance, wi' a coat ye didna own on your back, and disobedience in your heart. 'Tis the worst of them a' ye chose to escort ye, Hope, and if he thought he could safely presume to gi' ye a present like yon piano, ye hae but yersel' tae blame for it." "He didn't give it!" cried Mary Hope, her eyes ablaze with resentment. "He wasna here when it came. I havena heard from him and I dinna want to hear from him. It was Belle Lorrigan gave the piano, as I've said a million times. And I shall pay for it--"