The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1894-07-14
A BIRD OF PASSAGE.
BY BEATRICE HARRADEN,
Author of "Ships that Pass in the Night"


Author of "Ships that Pass in the Night"
1t was about in the afternoon when a
young girl came into the salon of the little
hotel at c., in Switzerland, and drew
her chair up to the fire.
"You are soaked through said an
elderly lady, who was herself trying to get
roasted. "You ought to lose no time in
changing your clothes
81 have not anything to change, said
the young girl, laughing. ''Oh, | shall
soon be dry y
"Have you lost all your luggage?" asked
the lady, sympathetically.
"No,' said the young girl; 81 have none
to lose. And she smiled little mis-
chievously, as though she knew by in
stinct that her companions sympathy
would at once degenerate into suspicion
81 don mean to say that have not a
knapsack," she added, considerably. II
have walked long distance-in fact from
="
"And where did you leave your compan-
ions?" asked the lady, with a touch of
forgiveness in her voice
81 am without companions, just as | am
without luggage" " laughed the girl.
And then she opened the piano and
struck few notes. There was something
caressing in the way in which she touched
the keys; whoever she was she knew how
to make sweet music; sad music, too, full
of that undefnable longing, like the hold
ing out of ones arms to ones friends in
the hopeless distance.
The lady bending over the fire looked
up at the little girl, and forgot that she
had brought neither friends nor luggage
with her She hesitated for one moment,
and then she took the childish face between
her hands and kissed it.
"Thank you, dear, for your music, she
said, gently.
"The piano is terribly out of tune, said
the little girl suddenly, and she ran out of
the room and came back carrying her KNAPP
sack.
"What are you going to do?" asked her
companion.
81 am going to tune the piano. the lit
tie girl said, and she took a tuning hammer
out of her knapsack and began her work
in real earnest. She evidently knew what
she was about and pegged away at the
notes as though her whole life depended
on the result.
The lady by the fire was lost in amaze
ment. Who could she be? Without
luggage and without friends and with a
Turning hammer
Meanwhile one of the gentlemen had
strolled into the salon; but hearing the
sound of tuning, and being in secret pos
session of nerves he fed, saying: "The
tuner, by Jover'
A few minutes afterward Miss Blake,
whose nerves were no secret possession,
hastened into the salon, and in her usual
imperious fashion demanded instant silence.
~ have just done, said the little girl.
"The piano was so terribly out of tune;
could not resist the temptation"
Miss Blake, who never listened to what
any one said, took it for granted that the
little girl was the tuner, for whom NJ. lie
Proprietaire had promised to send; and
having bestowed on her condescending
nod, passed out into the garden, where she
told some of the visitors that the piano
had been tuned at last, and that the tuner
was young woman of rather eccentric
appearance.
"Really, it is quite abominable how
women thrust themselves into every pro-
fession," she remarked, in her masculine
voice. sit is so unfeminine, so unseemly.
There was nothing of the feminine about
Miss Blake. Her horse-cloth dress, her
waist coat and high collar, and her billy
cock hat were of the masculine genus.
Even her nerves could not be called fem
mime, since we learn from two or three
doctors (taken off their guard that nerves
are neither feminine nor masculine, but
common.
Il should like to see this tuner" said
one Of the tennis players, leaning against a
tree.
"Here she comes" said Miss Blake, as
the little girl was seen sauntering into the
garden.
The men put up their eye glasses and
saw little lady with q childish face and