She had no excuse to offer: her girlish dreams were sacred to her; they came gliding to her through the most intricate passages of the sonata, now with a _staccato_ movement,--brisk, lively,--with fitful energy, now _andante_, then _crescendo, con passione_.

Jill's unformed girlish hands strike the chords wildly, angrily.

'_Dolce, dolce_,' screams the professor in her ears.

The music softens, wanes, and the dreams seem to die away too.
'That will do, Fraeulein: you have not acquitted yourself so badly after all.' And Jill gets off her music-stool reluctant, absent, half awake, and her day-dream broken up into chaos..