to come and live with them on what terms she chose; and when she said there ought to be some elderly man in the house, they at once suggested inviting their music-teacher.  Madame, aware of the confidence Mr. Royal had always placed in him, thought it was the best arrangement that could be made, at least for the present.  While preparations were being made to effect this change, her proceedings were suddenly arrested by tidings that the house and furniture were to be sold at auction, to satisfy the demands of creditors.  She kept back the unwelcome news from the girls, while she held long consultations with Signor Papanti.  He declared his opinion that Rosabella could make a fortune by her voice, and Floracita by dancing.

“But then they are so young,” urged Madame,—­“one only sixteen, the other only fourteen.”

“Youth is a disadvantage one soon outgrows,” replied the Signor.  “They can’t make fortunes immediately, of course; but they can earn a living by giving lessons.  I will try to open a way for them, and the sooner you prepare them for it the better.”

Madame dreaded the task of disclosing their poverty, but she found it less painful than she had feared.  They had no realizing sense of what it meant, and rather thought that giving lessons would be a pleasant mode of making time pass less heavily.  Madame, who fully understood the condition of things, kept a watchful lookout for their interests.  Before an inventory was taken, she gathered up and hid away many trifling articles which would be useful to them, though of little or no value to the creditors.  Portfolios of music, patterns for drawings, boxes of paint and crayons, baskets of chenille for embroidery, and a variety of other things, were safely packed away out of sight, without the girls’ taking any notice of her proceedings.

During her father’s lifetime, Floracita was so continually whirling round in fragmentary dances, that he often told her she rested on her feet less than a humming-bird.  But after he was gone, she remained very still from morning till night.  When Madame spoke to her of the necessity of giving dancing-lessons, it suggested the idea of practising.  But she felt that she could not dance where she had been accustomed to dance before him; and she had not the heart to ask Rosa to play for her.  She thought she would try, in the solitude of her chamber, how it would seem to give dancing-lessons.  But without music, and without a spectator, it seemed so like the ghost of dancing that after a few steps the poor child threw herself on the bed and sobbed.

Rosa did not open the piano for several days after the funeral; but one morning, feeling as if it would be a relief to pour forth the sadness that oppressed her, she began to play languidly.  Only requiems and prayers came.  Half afraid of summoning an invisible spirit, she softly touched the keys to “The Light of other Days.”  But remembering it was the very last tune she ever played to her father, she leaned her head forward on the instrument, and wept bitterly.