But she could make nothing of it; and Mrs.Lawrence, the soldier's wife, became at once an object of interest, of mystery, almost of jealousy, to Anita.

The little boy she noticed, as did all who saw him, and like everybody else, she was won by him.
The morning of the great dinner at the Fortescues', Neroda, the Italian band-master, came to give Anita her violin lesson.

Mrs.Fortescue, listening and delighted with Anita's progress, came in to the drawing-room as Neroda was shouting bravos in rapture over the way his best pupil caught the soul of music in her delicate hands and made it prisoner.
"Good-morning, Mr.Neroda," said Mrs.Fortescue in her pretty and affable manner--Mrs.Fortescue would have been affable with an ogre--"I must ask you to come this evening and play my daughter's accompaniments.

We are having a large dinner and I should like Anita to play for us after dinner." "Certainly, madam," answered Neroda, who, like everybody else, was anxious to do Mrs.Fortescue's smiling bidding, "I am proud of the signorina's playing." "Mr.Broussard is coming to the dinner," continued Mrs.Fortescue after a moment.

"He sings so charmingly.