Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/62

52 field as fine as that. Play something lively for me, Reba, and put on all the loud pedals."

But Reba's pieces were not lively ones, and she had always been cautious with the loud pedal—her playing sounded more like the tinkling of a harp—but she did as well as she knew how. Afterward she looked up to see her father standing in his overcoat in the doorway.

"All ready," he said briefly. Then, "Is there any need of an illumination in here?" he growled, and approached the high gas-chandelier and turned off one of the two lights Reba had lit.

Cousin Pattie chuckled. "My! David. Anybody'd think you were a poor man, and couldn't afford those lights!"

"Rich or poor, waste is wicked," David remarked.

"Waste of good-nature over trifles is wicked, David," she replied. Then with a mighty effort she drew herself out from the depths of the armchair and got to her feet.

"You all wait a minute," she said, leaning down, and proceeding to lift her outside skirt. From a deep pocket concealed somewhere in her voluminous petticoat, she drew out and placed on the mantel four little objects—a homeopathic pill-bottle, corked and labeled, a bit of gilt mosaic, a small pebble, and an imitation scarab. "Presents," she explained. "I always like to leave a little remembrance of some sort when I come. This is for you, Augusta," she pointed to the bottle. "Water from the Dead Sea; and this pebble, from the banks of the Ganges, is for Emma; and this bit of mosaic, which I picked out of a floor in Pompeii, is for Eunice; and this, Reba, this is a