Mrs. Quinn's house was old and shabby, its fences tumbling down; hard times often knocked at her door, but with it all her smile was always as bright as the gay geraniums blooming on the spotless sill of the kitchen window that faced the Everett house.
Fortune had come to the Quinns that day in the guise of a new lodger. He had taken the second floor bedroom which stretched across the back of the house. Because this room was very big and had a queer, rickety stairway leading to it from the outside of the house, it had never been rented. But with the other lodgers who lived in the front rooms and the tiny side bedroom and the parlor, which had been converted into a "light housekeeping suite," Mrs. Quinn managed to keep her little family most comfortably and to have a bit left over for such luxuries as the flowers, a few books, pretty pictures and crisp muslin curtains.
"Faith, Sheila," she had cried, coming into the kitchen where her daughter was preparing apples for the oven. "It's just as though Dame Fortune knew it was your birthday! Now you shall have your music!"
"Oh, mother!" cried the girl, dropping her paring knife. "How wonderful!" Then, hesitating: "But maybe I hadn't ought to! That much each week would make things easier if----"
But Mrs. Quinn snatched bowl, apples and knife from her daughter's hands. "Don't let's be worrying over what's ahead, sweetness! We'll just take what comes! Didn't I have my bit of music when I was a girl and don't I know the longings that are in you to have things that other girls have, lassie? It's a good daughter you are to me and it's you that has always made the hard things easier----" She stopped suddenly as though something in her throat choked the words. For answer Sheila caught the rough hands that knew only work now and kissed them.
Then these two, arms around one another, the bowl tipping dangerously between them, laughed together as though there had never been a single hardship in the world.
"We're two sillies--that's what we are! Now we must be about our work or the gentleman will come and the room won't be ready!"
"Who is he, mother?"
"Sure, child, and I scarcely asked him! His name is Marks and he said he was employed at the Everett Works. I only thought of you, dearie! After supper you run over and see Miss Sheehan about the lessons; two a week--and we'll have a man come to tune up the old piano and we'll just pull it out here where it will be warm and where I can listen to you!"
So their work--and there was much for their quick fingers to do before the room could be put in readiness for the new tenant and the supper prepared for the younger Quinns, would be made lighter by their happy plans!