Of course Josephine Harris did not go up stairs. She had no real errand whatever in that direction. There was a door opening from Richard's little bed-room, adjoining his study, into the hall; and her hope was to find that door unlocked. If not, some other excuse must be made to get into his room, to invent which she must play a few more tunes, and run a little more risk of being interrupted. She stepped very lightly to the door, with a repetition of that cat-step which seemed that day suddenly to have come to her. She turned the knob--it _was_ unlocked--it opened. One dart through the other door and to the sofa. The cushion was a moveable one, as she knew, and very likely to be made a temporary hiding-place for any small article, by one lying upon it. She lifted the edge of the cushion, her heart beating at trip-hammers again, and her whole being almost as much excited as it had been half an hour before. Human life is full of blunders, but happily there are some movements that are _not_ blunders; and this was one of them. A small, round roll of linen, three or four inches wide, was stuck a little distance under the edge. She drew it out, hastily unrolled it until she saw that a dark plaster lay in the middle, then, with a "Whew!" of triumph, quite as hastily rolled it up again and thrust it into her pocket. Half a minute more, and she had softly ascended a dozen steps of the stairs, and descended again with plenty of noise, springing down with a decided bump on the landing. Then she burst into the parlor with her _piece of music_, and sat down once more to the piano. "Excuse my running away, Dick. Haven't been long--have I?" "No, not very long," answered Crawford, whose impressions of Joe's steadiness were not enthusiastic. "You know I should not have been surprised if you had not come back in a week." "Fie! fie! Dick Crawford! I have half a mind not to play for you at all, after that insult." But she did attempt to play, and to play "Las Ojos Criollos." If she ever could have played that most brilliant and difficult of all Gottschalk's pieces, which was very doubtful, she certainly was not capable of doing it when her fingers were in such a tremor, and with the mysterious package in her pocket; and though it may be an ungallant and improper thing to say of a lady's performance, she "made a mess of it."