One of Victor's legs was shorter than the other by reason of a fall, and as he walked he swayed like a little dry tree creaking in a breeze; one felt he had no leaves. He was secretly well-pleased by his employer's marriage, but it was a peculiarity of his seldom to address him and to observe toward him a critical manner. Now, after greeting the couple, he looked at Rachel exclusively. The old goldsmith, besides being something of a musician was an excellent judge of a violin, and at Simon's request he had obtained for Rachel the instrument she wished to give André. "It's not just what I wanted," he explained, "but neither is it bad." And thereupon he drew the bow across the violin. "Oh, how well you play!" she murmured, and then fell silent. She regretted that she had withheld from André news of her marriage; she should have told him at once. Now she planned to send him the violin as a sign of her unalterable affection. When Victor handed the instrument to Simon she aroused herself. "And how is the _pyrometer_ coming on, Mr. Mudge?" she demanded with animation. "Have you heard anything yet from Mr. St. Ives?" Victor shrugging his shoulders, once more took into his fingers the string of seed pearls and the needle. "He was in here about a week ago and left a drawing; and yesterday I received a letter from him saying he'd be in this evening to test something at the furnace. I'm waiting his pleasure now." Rachel suddenly laughed. When she and Simon left the shop, when they were once more in the carriage, she leaned to him impulsively and pressed her lips to his cheek. That evening she heard her first opera. In order to justify Simon's pride in her and also to gratify her own innate sense of coquetry, she had arrayed herself to great advantage. Whence came this knowledge of the requirements of her new position, whence the pretty dignity of her bearing? Perhaps from her Canadian great-grandfather and his English wife; or this manner of hers may have been a free gift of the gods. Excited by the strains of music that ascended from the orchestra, she deepened and increased in beauty and in the immediate neighbourhood of her husband's box became the centre of attention. But of this she was only imperfectly aware. If, by chance, she did intercept an admiring glance, she took it as a tribute to her dress of white satin, cunningly embroidered in a design of gold flowers, to her coiffure, her fan, her bouquet, to everything and anything but her own youthful countenance to which the force of her emotions was adding an indefinable attraction. She made a charming picture; her eyes half hidden by their lashes; her face, her shoulders, even her round arms and her hands radiant with a childlike happiness like sunshine.