Richard Crawford had taken off that bandage, and that bandage must come into her possession at once, while the preparation was fresh. But how was it to be obtained? Where had he put it? From the fact that he had been re-arranging his clothes while yet in a recumbent position, the chances seemed to be that he had taken off the bandage, if at all, without getting up, and that he then had it somewhere about him, intending to lock it up or put it away when he rose to go to the bed-room. He was very neat in his personal habits, as well as somewhat nervous in disposition; and on the score of cleanliness he was not likely to have put it into one of his pockets, while if he indeed felt it to be poison he would have been quite as unlikely to retain it so near his person. Joe felt that if removed, that bandage must be somewhere about the sofa. How to get it, even then? He would not be at all likely to go to bed, leaving it there; besides, she wanted it _at once_! He must be got suddenly out of the room, and he was too weak and suffering to remove often or on small provocation. The piano!--ah, yes, she would try the piano! Joe's musical performances were always pyrotechnic; except on particular occasions when the sad soul that underlay the merriment came uppermost, and then they were mournful enough to tempt suicide. To say that she knew nothing about music, would be untrue of any one taught at the same trouble and expense; but to say that she understood it, taking the knowledge of other people as a standard, would be equally incorrect. When studying music under an excellent teacher, it had been found impossible to confine her to any set rules, and quite as impossible to make her execute her lessons properly. When she should have been performing that routine duty, her eolian piano at home was half the time turned into a banjo or a harp, tinkling a serenade, or into an organ, playing some ponderous old anthem or sobbing out some dirge of a broken heart. These were all well enough, in their way, but they were not studying the piano. As a result, she could produce all those effects upon the instrument, that no one else would ever have thought of attempting; the only penalty being, that what any one else could have done, she could not do at all. This did not suit some people, but it suited Miss Joe, exactly; and as she was pleased, perhaps no one else had a right to complain. If any one _did_ complain he or she was likely to be at once treated to one of the lugubrious compositions before mentioned, producing the "dumps" for a month after.