Taking the violin and adjusting it, she played a sweet, simple melody, then explained to the girl, who listened with rapt eagerness, a few of the things that a beginner should know. “Suppose you try to play.” The young teacher smiled at the maid, little dreaming that she would comply, but Dixie did not hesitate. She lifted the violin, and, after listening to the strings for a moment, she began to play the same melody that Miss Bayley had but finished. It was imperfectly done, but the young teacher knew that she had been right in believing that the girl was rarely talented.
“I will teach you all that I know, which isn’t much,” Miss Bayley said. “Then, when the snow is gone and spring has come, you shall have lessons from some one who is a real musician.”
Dixie’s cup of happiness seemed full those wintry days, for Carol grew in gentleness and unselfishness, and was ever more loved and more lovable.
“How pleased our father would be!” Dixie said that night as she and Ken were alone in the kitchen after the party. Mr. Edrington had gone with Miss Bayley, to escort her home up the cañon trail, and the younger children were asleep. “Pleased, because we have two such wonderful friends. Three,” the girl added brightly, “for surely Mr. Clayburn has been a true friend.”
“We have managed to get along quite nicely without our aunt,” the boy said as he wound the old grandfather’s clock. “I’m just as well pleased that she never did look us up. I’m almost sure we shouldn’t like her.”
“I don’t believe she knows that we even exist,” Dixie declared. “Since she never opened any of the letters that were sent to her, how could she know?”
“That’s right,” Ken agreed. “I wonder what set me to thinking about her? Well, I won’t waste any more thought on her. Good-night, Dix.”
The girl had started to ascend the ladder to the loft where she slept, but she turned back and kissed the lad as she said: “Ken, you’ve been a wonderful brother. On birthdays one thinks of those things. Good-night.”
The moon arose above old Piney Peak as Miss Bayley and Mr. Edrington left the sheltered cañon trail and turned into the highway.
“I’m going to put out the light in the lantern,” the young man said. “We don’t need it now, do we?” he smilingly asked after having blown out the flickering flame.