"It is a great van sort of thing," exclaimed Ivor, racing back to tell his sister. "I've seen them like it in London, but I don't know what's in it, I'm sure."
Nurse, who was standing looking on, peeped through the hedge at Ivor's description, and finally went down the garden into the lane too.
Two men were in charge of the cart, and one stepped forward with a note.
"For Miss Carew," he said.
Nurse was greatly astonished, and looked back to where Lucia was standing in the porch, framed by the roses and honeysuckle.
"For me?" asked Lucia, coming down the path. Then she saw her mother's handwriting, and tearing the envelope open, saw within—
"For my dear Lucia, with her mother's love."
"Whatever is it?" said Evan excitedly.
While the man went to the back of the van with a key, saying in a very matter-of-fact voice, "A cottage piano, miss. Where is it to go?"
Lucia could not believe the evidence of her eyes. A piano! Was not the lack of this one of the things which had caused her such discontent in coming here? Had she not said to herself bitterly that mother quite forgot what it would be to give up her music for three months, nor how stiff her fingers would get, nor how out of practice her voice!