ordinary errands, to inquire whether Mrs. Callender would not take her in to board! She was all alone, and wished for a quiet lodging. It was her intention to give music-lessons in the district.
Music! It is doubtful whether any other key would at that time have opened Mrs. Callender’s independent door to a boarder; but that one did, and instantaneously. The stranger, a tall, gaunt, short-spoken woman, with hair already grey, and a stern, sad face, did not look as though she would prove, or would even attempt to prove, an otherwise congenial companion, but—if she played! If she would only play! Mrs. Callender had a passion for music, quite untrained, but genuine and deep; melody was as thoroughly a need of her nature as warmth was, or food, or air, and it was one that, away back here in the country, she had never been able to appease. So she came to terms at once; there was some throwing open of long-closed windows and doors, a little sweeping and dusting, rubbing and rearranging; and presently, a day or two after, the bullock-sledge came lumbering over the tussock with a few battered boxes and one great wooden case; and the old kitchen, with its brown walls, its great hearth, and its outlook on the far horizon, passed into the possession of Miss Kirkcaldie and her piano.
Who Miss Kirkcaldie was; where she had come from and, why; how she had happened to drift into this out-of-the-way corner of the world—these were questions that every one in Kiteroa asked, but nobody could answer. Miss Kirkcaldie herself was Scotch, so much was easily certain; and, being Scotch, she knew how to hold her tongue; in fact,
