nuts were ripe, and once they served.  One day Elnora at her wits’ end, explained to her mother that the girls had given her things and she wanted to treat them.  Mrs. Comstock, with characteristic stubbornness, had said she would leave a basket at the grocery for her, but firmly declined to say what would be in it.  All day Elnora struggled to keep her mind on her books.  For hours she wavered in tense uncertainty.  What would her mother do?  Should she take the girls to the confectioner’s that night or risk the basket?  Mrs. Comstock could make delicious things to eat, but would she?

As they left the building Elnora made a final rapid mental calculation.  She could not see her way clear to a decent treat for ten people for less than two dollars and if the basket proved to be nice, then the money would be wasted.  She decided to risk it.  As they went to the bridge the girls were betting on what the treat would be, and crowding near Elnora like spoiled small children.  Elnora set down the basket.

“Girls,” she said, “I don’t know what this is myself, so all of us are going to be surprised.  Here goes!”

She lifted the cover and perfumes from the land of spices rolled up.  In one end of the basket lay ten enormous sugar cakes the tops of which had been liberally dotted with circles cut from stick candy.  The candy had melted in baking and made small transparent wells of waxy sweetness and in the centre of each cake was a fat turtle made from a raisin with cloves for head and feet.  The remainder of the basket was filled with big spiced pears that could be held by their stems while they were eaten.  The girls shrieked and attacked the cookies, and of all the treats Elnora offered perhaps none was quite so long remembered as that.

When Elnora took her basket, placed her books in it, and started home, all the girls went with her as far as the fence where she crossed the field to the swamp.  At parting they kissed her good-bye.  Elnora was a happy girl as she hurried home to thank her mother.  She was happy over her books that night, and happy all the way to school the following morning.

When the music swelled from the orchestra her heart almost broke with throbbing joy.  For music always had affected her strangely, and since she had been comfortable enough in her surroundings to notice things, she had listened to every note to find what it was that literally hurt her heart, and at last she knew.  It was the talking of the violins.  They were human voices, and they spoke a language Elnora understood.  It seemed to her that she must climb up on the stage, take the instruments from the fingers of the players and make them speak what was in her heart.

That night she said to her mother, “I am perfectly crazy for a violin.  I am sure I could play one, sure as I live.  Did any one——­” Elnora never completed that sentence.

“Hush!” thundered Mrs. Comstock.  “Be quiet!  Never mention those things before me again—­never as long as you live!  I loathe them!  They are a snare of the very devil himself!  They were made to lure men and women from their homes and their honour.  If ever I see you with one in your fingers I will smash it in pieces.”