below.  To be sure Mary’s dress did not trail, and she was not tall and willowy outwardly, but it made no difference as long as she could feel that she was.  For a long time she walked slowly back and forth along the river path, pausing now and then to look up at the great castle-like building above her.  She had never seen one before so suggestive of old-world grandeur.  Already it was giving her more than she would find inside in its text-books.  Peculiarly susceptible to surroundings, she unconsciously held herself more erect, as if such a stately habitation demanded it of her.  And when she climbed the steps again, with it looming up before her in the red afterglow, the dignity and repose of its lines, from its massive portal to its highest turret, awakened a response in her beauty-loving little soul that thrilled her like music.

She went softly through the great door and up the stair-case, pausing for a moment on the landing to look at the coat-of-arms in the stained glass window.  It was a copy of the window in the old ancestral castle in England, that belonged to Madam Chartley’s family.  Mary already knew the story of its traditional founder, the first Edryn who had won his knighthood in valiant deeds for King Arthur.  In the dim light the coat-of-arms gleamed like jewels in an amber setting, and the heart in the crest, the heart out of which rose a mailed hand grasping a spear, was like a great ruby.

“I keep the tryste,” whispered Mary, reading the motto of the scroll underneath.  “No wonder Madam Chartley grew up to be so patrician.  Anybody might with a window like that in the house.”

Some one began striking loud full chords on a piano in one of the rooms below; some one with a strong masterful touch.  Mary was sure it was a man.  By leaning over the banister until she almost lost her balance, she caught a glimpse of a pair of black coat-tails swinging awkwardly over a piano bench.  Herr Vogelbaum, the musical director, must have arrived.  Probably she would meet him at dinner.  That was something to look forward to—­an artist who had played before crowned heads and had been lionized all over Germany.  And then the chords rolled into something so beautiful and inspiring that Mary knew that for the first time in her life she was hearing really great music, played by a master.  She sat down on the steps to listen.

The self-conscious feeling that she was acting a part in a play came back afresh, and made her hastily pull down her skirts and assume a listening attitude.  Thinking how effective she would look on a stage she leaned back against the carved banister, clasping her hands around her knees, and gazing up at the ruby heart in the stained glass window above her.  But in a moment both self and pose were forgotten.  She had never dreamed that the world held such music as the flood of melody which came rolling up from below.  It seemed to lift her out of herself and into another world; a world of nameless longings and