No one offered to conduct her to the piano--not even Richard, who sat just where he was; while Tim, in his haste to vacate the music stool, precipitated it to the floor, and got his leather shoes entangled in Ethelyn's skirts.
Tim, and Will Parsons, and Andy all hastened to pick up the stool, knocking their heads together, and raising a laugh in which Ethelyn could not join.

Thoroughly disgusted and sick at heart, she felt much as the Jewish maidens must have felt when required to give a song.

Her harp was indeed upon the willows hung, and her heart was turning sadly toward her far-off Jerusalem as she sat down and tried to think what she should play to suit her audience.

Suddenly it occurred to her to suit herself rather than her hearers, and her snowy fingers--from which flashed Daisy's diamond and a superb emerald--swept the keys with a masterly grace and skill.

Ethelyn was perfectly at home at the piano, and dashing off into a brilliant and difficult overture, she held her hearers for a few minutes astonished both at her execution and the sounds she made.