The Tangled Threads

When Hester was two years old a wheezy hand-organ would set her eyes to sparkling andher cheeks to dimpling, and when she was twenty the "Maiden's Prayer," played by aschool-girl, would fill her soul with ecstasy. To Hester, all the world seemed full of melody. Even the clouds in the sky sailed slowlyalong in time to a stately march in her brain, or danced to the tune of a merry schottischethat sounded for her ears alone. And when she saw the sunset from the hill behind herhome, there was always music then-low and tender if the colors were soft and pale-tinted, grand and awful if the wind blew shreds and tatters of storm-clouds across a purpling sky. All this was within Hester; but without-There had been but little room in Hester's life for music. Her days were an endless round ofdish-washing and baby-tending-first for her mother, later for herself. There had been nomoney for music lessons, no time for piano practice. Hester's childish heart had swelledwith bitter envy whenever she saw the coveted music roll swinging from some playmate'shand. At that time her favorite "make-believe" had been to play at going for a music lesson, with a carefully modeled roll of brown paper suspended by a string from her fingers. Hester was forty now. Two sturdy boys and a girl of nine gave her three hungry mouths tofeed and six active feet to keep in holeless stockings. Her husband had been dead two years, and life was a struggle and a problem. The boys she trained rigorously, giving just measureof love and care; but the girl-ah, Penelope should have that for which she herself had solonged. Penelope should take music lessons!During all those nine years since Penelope had come to her, frequent dimes and quarters, with an occasional half-dollar, had found their way into an old stone jar on the top shelf inthe pantry. It had been a dreary and pinching economy that had made possible this hordeof silver, and its effects had been only too visible in Hester's turned and mended garments, to say nothing of her wasted figure and colorless cheeks. Penelope was nine now, andHester deemed it a fitting time to begin the spending of her treasured wealth. First, the instrument: it must be a rented one, of course. Hester went about the labor ofprocuring it in a state of exalted bliss that was in a measure compensation for her longyears of sacri