"No, I am afraid not," said Nancy, shaking her head regretfully. "I wish she were!"
The two women were silent; and from the little bedroom upstairs, through the open window, came Anne-Marie's voice, like tinkling water.
"She is singing," said Fräulein Müller.
"Oh yes; she always sings herself to sleep. She likes music." And Nancy told her about the violin.
"We shall buy her a violin to-morrow," said Fräulein Müller.
And so she did. The violin was new and bright and brown; it was labelled "Guarnerius," and cost three dollars. Anne-Marie pushed the bow up and down on it with great pleasure for a short time. Then she became very impatient, and took it out into the garden, and looked for a large stone.
"...It made ugly voices at me," she said, standing small and unrepentant by the broken brown pieces, while Fräulein Müller and Nancy shook grieved heads at her.
"I do not think that music is her vocation after all," said Fräulein Müller. "But we shall see."
XII
"Good-morning, my tenebrious Unknown. I am in the country, perched up on a stone wall with nothing in sight but vague, distant hills and sleepy fields. Queer insects buzz in the sun, and make me feel pale. I dread buzzing insects with a great shivery dread.