The curtains drooped sorrowfully, the carpet had a lonely, untrodden look; the chairs had an air of not expecting to be sat upon, some Elizabethan portraits on the walls showed stiff wooden personages, who seemed to have driven all the living persons out of the room.

When the piano was opened, the black and white keys appeared cold and uninviting to the touch.
"Oh dear! oh dear!" said Terry.

"An hour's practising! It is just twelve by the clock now, and I shall have to strum till one!" [Illustration] She spent all the time she could in screwing the music-stool to the right height for her little figure.

It was no sooner up high enough than she found she wanted it to go down, and then it would go down too low.

At last it was just as right as it could be, and there was nothing more to be done with it.
Then the first two notes were struck by Terry's two little thumbs.