Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/302

est dream of the most visionary worldly ambition, Mrs. Bennet wanted a melodeon for Tilly. When she went on Sundays to church in Provincetown and heard the first line of the psalm-tune played over and over on the wheezy melodeon, she thought that if she could only sometimes hear such sounds as that in the light-house, instead of the endless boom and thud and swash of the water, life might become endurable to her. She had a marvelous knack at crocheting mats, tidies, and the like; and as soon as Tilly's little fingers were strong enough to hold a needle, they were instructed in the same art. In the long winter months a great stock of these crocheted articles was accumulated to be sold to the summer visitors. Braided rugs, also, Mrs. Bennet made to sell, and bed-quilts of scarlet and white cottons sewed in intricate patterns. The small sums thus saved she hoarded as religiously as if they were a trust and not her own. She did not reveal her purpose to Tilly for years,—not until the child herself grew impatient of the mystery, and of being told that it was "for something nice" the quarters and half-dollars were being put away. When Tilly knew what they were for she worked harder than ever; and at last, one June, when she was sixteen years old, there came a day—a proud day for Mrs. Bennet and a joyful one for Tilly—when a small sloop pushed out from the Provincetown wharves and made straight for the light-house, bearing the melodeon, spick-span