Dr. Emory was a mystery, a real, live, undiscoverable mystery. All that was really known of him was that he had come from England several years before and worked as an ordinary farm-hand with a farmer at the Brandon Hills. He was a steady, reliable man, very quiet and reticent. That he knew anything about music was discovered quite by accident one day when the family for whom he worked were all away to a picnic and "Emer" was left to mind the house. One of the neighbour's boys came over to borrow a neck-yoke. "Emer," glad to be alone in the house, was in the parlour playing the piano. The neighbour's boy knocked and knocked at the back door, but got no response. Finally he went around to the front and looked in the window to see who was playing the piano, and there sat "Emer" "ripplin' it off by the yard," the boy said afterward, "the smashin'est band music you ever heard." Soon after that "Emer" left the plough, and Dr Emeritus Emory began to teach music to the young people of the neighbourhood and of the neighbourhoods beyond, for he was fond of long walks and thought nothing of twenty miles in a day. His home was where night found him, and, being of a genial, kindly nature, he was a welcome guest at many a fireside. The music-teacher's reticence regarding his own affairs exasperated some of the women. There was no human way of finding out who he was or why he left home. Mrs. George Steadman once indignantly exclaimed, speaking of Dr. Emory,--"You can't even tell if he's married, or if she's livin'. Maybe she is, for all we know. He never gets no mail. George went and asked."