"Voi che sapete

che cosa è amor…"

Mary Ashworth accompanied herself on the piano as she sang the aria, her long, graceful white fingers dancing lightly over the keys. She was a tall, slender girl of fifteen. Her costume was singularly inappropriate for her occupation. She wore a dark blue woolen walking suit, her high-cheekboned face was flushed, her gloves sat next to her on the bench, and her funny umbrella with the parrot handle leaned against the piano, as if she had just come in from outdoors and had commenced practicing without pausing to change her outfit.

"Donne vedete

s'io l'ho nel cor.

Quello ch'io provo

vi ridirò…"

The eldest daughter of Lord Ashworth continued through the song rather mechanically, as if she was hardly aware of what she was doing. Her dark, delicate eyebrows were contracted in a slightly absent frown, and her striking blue eyes were narrowed thoughtfully.

"…è per me nuovo,

capir nol so…"

The slender fingers seemed to trip over themselves, and a sour note startled the young singer out of her thoughts. The handle of her umbrella let out a squawk of protest, and Mary laughed and shook her head at it, recognizing ruefully that she was not concentrating on her practice.

"Hush," she whispered to the parrot. "You'll get me into trouble." The umbrella handle blinked once at her before subsiding into its usual wooden immobility. Mary's fingers, left to their own devices, twisted the melody of the aria into a lilting dance tune. Thus freed from its enforced concentration on the music, her mind returned to its earlier contemplation.

"I saw you leaving by the back gate this morning." The slightly accusatory words were the first intimation of the presence of another besides herself in the room. Mary checked her startlement and continued to play, refusing to appear surprised by the sudden announcement.

"Father isn't going to be happy when he hears that you've been to visit Mrs. Gibson again."

Fingers still skipping lightly over the ivory keys, Mary turned her head toward the doorway to fix her younger sister with a level stare. "Father," she said deliberately, "will not hear anything of it if you don't see fit to tell him."

Ellen Ashworth smiled, appearing completely unaffected by her sister's keen gaze. "He will guess, if he comes in here and finds you still in your walking suit."

"I'll be changed for tea before he comes home," Mary said airily, turning back to the keyboard.

"What on earth are you playing?" Ellen demanded.

Mary looked down at the piano keys and gave a startled little laugh, only then recognizing the tune her fingers had chosen while her mind had been busy. Giving her sister a whimsical smile, she began singing:

"Chim-chiminee

Chim-chiminee

Chim chim charee!

A sweep is as lucky

As lucky can be!"

 "What utter nonsense!" Ellen laughed. "Where did you learn that?"

"From a young man I met on my way home this afternoon," Mary answered.

"Chim-chiminee

Chim-chiminee

Chim chim charoo!

Good luck will rub off

When I shake hands with you!"

"Well, who was he?" her sister demanded. "Was he anyone of any importance? Was he handsome? Will he come calling?"

Mary only smiled her enigmatic smile and continued playing.

"Or blow me a kiss,

and that's lucky too!"

"Mary!" Ellen reached over her sister's shoulders, grasped her hands, and lifted them off the keyboard, laughing. "Who was he?"

"No one of any importance whatsoever," Mary said rather severely, swiveling around on the piano stool to stare quellingly into her little sister's eagerly shining eyes. "Likely I'll never see him again."

Ellen playfully knelt down at her sister's knee, as she used to do when she was very young, to beg her for a story. Their clasped hands dropped into the older girl's lap. "Tell me about him."

Mary shook her head in resignation. Then her eyes took on a faraway look as she said, "He was just a chimney-sweep. Not much older than you. Dirty and ragged and common. But the way he danced down the street, you'd have thought he was a prince with the whole world at his feet…"

Ellen listened, entranced.

And thus the girls' father found them when he came home to tea.