Annie burst into tears at this unexpected tenderness. Twisting herself around, she rested her cheek against his. "You--you leave me to myself all the time, Alexander," she sobbed, "and I've no one at all but you." "Yes, yes, I know," he responded mournfully. "And you don't talk to me about your work as you do to Mrs. Hart; and I could understand as well as she if you would take the trouble to explain to me." "Well, don't cry, little kitten," he said, "I've come to explain something to you now and I hope it will please you." "How please me?" she asked. "Well, I have an idea at last which I think will strike your fancy. I mean it's practical," he explained, "--has commercial possibilities." "Are you sure?" she demanded doubtfully: "you aren't a very good judge, you know." "Never the less, I can't help knowing that anything in the line of a novel improvement of a musical instrument like the organ,--in fact, an innovation,--in these days is almost certain to succeed." "Oh, Alexander, tell me! Tell me what you have in mind!" and raising her head from his shoulder she laid hold of his hand. "What an excitable little creature it is," he said tenderly. "Well, it's a scheme for increasing the capacity for emotional expression in an organ. I shall manage to combine the vibrations of strings with those of pipes by incorporating in the organ a complete piano action. Do you understand?" She nodded. He laughed. "A pile you do! I shall combine them in such a way, that by a separate keyboard the strings can be used for piano accompaniment, and also can be coupled with the organ keys so that when they are depressed, the corresponding dampers in the piano are lifted from the strings to admit of their free sympathetic vibration." "Oh!" said Annie, on a long breath. "And you think it might mean a big thing?" "In a commercial sense, yes; in fact I think it's about certain to be popular. But in order to carry out the scheme I shall have to have every chance for experimenting, you know," and he looked pleadingly into her face. "Of course;" she agreed, "but this place suits you, Alexander--you always said that it did?" "Yes, the place is all right," he answered, hesitating, "but I need an instrument, you see. So I--I've bought one," he added softly. "Not a pipe organ, Alexander?" He nodded. "A second-hand one, very small, naturally, only two manuals. But even so, I shall have to pull out one of the partitions before it can be set up." "How much did it cost?" she cried, and her eyes and her mouth assumed the appearance in her countenance of three little round holes of horror. "Well, by paying cash for it to the church committee who put it up at auction," he said in a low voice, "I got it for eight hundred dollars." At these words Annie crossed to the further side of the room and dropping into a chair, leaned her forehead against the wall.