"Bravo!" thought wild Joe, but she did not say it. Very gently and tenderly she assisted the invalid from his sofa and to a standing position, and then quite as tenderly through the door and to the sofa that stood nearly opposite the piano. Then she ran back and _closed the sliding-doors_ again, for fear, as she said, that there might be too much draught of air on the invalid. So far, so good! Richard Crawford had been coaxed out of his room and into the parlor that he scarcely entered once a month. What next? "Play me a wreath of Scottish melodies," said Crawford, with the feeling of the old blood coming up within him. "And be sure that you throw in 'Roy's Wife' and 'Annie Laurie.' Will you?--That's a good girl?" Dick spoke more cheerfully than had been his late habit, and settled himself to an easy position on the sofa with more the air of a man ready to enjoy, than he had for some time manifested. "Has there been an incubus suddenly lifted from his breast?" Joe Harris asked herself, noticing the change. If there was anything that she really _could_ play on the piano, her forte lay in those very Scottish airs, which she certainly rendered with exquisite feeling and with skill enough for the moderate demands of that class of music. And on this occasion she felt bound to exert herself, to repay the obligation of Crawford's coming out to hear her, though her brain was all in a whirl for fear something might occur to drive the patient back into his room, and her fingers, as they touched the white keys, itched to be busying themselves about the cushions of the invalid's sofa. For a few moments, while "Within a Mile of Edinboro' Town," "Roy's Wife," "Charlie is My Darling," "Bonnie Doon" and half a dozen others of the Scottish wreath were dripping from her fingers, and while Richard Crawford was enjoying his favorite music better than he had before enjoyed anything for many a week,--for this few moments Joe Harris was nonplussed. How should she get out of the room? Oh! Suddenly she remembered that there was some music on one of the tables up-stairs, and she acted upon that excuse for absence. "Oh, Dick, please lie still a moment. There is a piece up-stairs that I must bring down and play for you. I know you will like it. One of Gottschalk's--'Las Ojos Criollos.'" She had caught sight of that composition lying at the top of the heap of music near her, and without being observed by Crawford she caught the sheet, rolled it up in her hand, and was out of the room in a moment. "Tut! tut! what a pity that that girl _never_ can be still a moment and do exactly what any one asks her to do!" was the mental comment of that gentleman as her flying skirts disappeared through the door.