"I've just noticed that one of the straps of my hand-bag is torn." "Why, do you want it?" asked his wife. "One's hand-bag must always be kept in readiness," he answered, his eyes continuing to rove about the room. "Suppose I were suddenly to be called to act as substitute somewhere. I must have my bag ready." As a matter of fact, he had been called upon the previous winter to take the place of a Berlin virtuoso, who had undertaken to "do" the towns in eastern Germany and whose train had been snow-bound near Bromberg. The committee telegraphed to papa requesting him to play in his stead. But now, in midsummer, when the concert season was dead, such an emergency was scarcely within the realm of the possible. "I'll tell Minna to take it to the saddler's right after supper," said mama, who took good care not to contradict her choleric husband. He nodded meditatively and walked into his bedroom, while the mother ran to the kitchen to do the final honours in her own person to the titbit she had prepared for him. A few minutes later he returned with the bag in his hand. It looked rather bulgy. He stopped before the linen chest. "Lilly, dear," he said, "I wonder whether the score would go into the grip crosswise? In case I am called to a concert, you know--" The score of the Song of Songs was kept in the linen chest, so that, should fire break out during papa's absence, anyone in the family might easily get at this greatest of treasures. Lilly looked for the keys, but could not find them. "I'll go ask mama," she said. "No, no," he cried hastily, and a shiver went through his body, such as Lilly had often noticed when mother was mentioned to him. "I'll first take this old thing to the saddler." Lilly was shocked at the idea that her celebrated father should himself go to the saddler's dingy workshop. "Mercy!" she cried, and reached out for the handle of the bag. She would take it to the saddler herself. But he warded her off. "You're too grown up now for such things, my girl," he said, and his eyes lighted up as they scanned her tall, virginal body, her hips and bosom, already beginning to show delicate curves. "Why, you're almost a _signora_." He patted her cheeks and pulled a little at the lock of the linen chest, gnawing his lips the while in intense bitterness. Then suddenly he shook himself, and with a shy, contemptuous look toward the kitchen--Lilly knew that look, too--went quickly out of the room. He went and never came back. * * * * * The night following that red summer evening remained graven in Lilly's memory hour by hour. Her mother sat on the window-sill in her nightgown, and her fervid, anxious eyes kept glancing up and down the street. Whenever she heard steps at a distance knocking on the pavement, she would start and cry: "There he is."