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 "Mother'd say I was uneasy as a fish," she suddenly said to herself, and sat resolutely down. Her eyes lingered regretfully upon the pansies in the tumbler, and the words, "Mother'd ought to have them! Mother'd ought to have them!" dwelt like a refrain upon her lips. Suddenly an inspiration came to her that made her heart beat quicker. Why should not her mother have them? She looked out of the window. The sun was still bright upon the glittering snow, though the short winter's day was drawing to a close. T ain't so very far," she said to herself. "There'll be plenty o' time to git back before supper, and Harriet 'pears to be asleep. I do want to do somethin' for mother to-night, and she'd ought to have them flowers."

With trembling haste she went up stairs to her room, creeping stealthily past the door of the "best chamber." Harriet was sound asleep, as Betsy might have known if she could have heard the heavy breathing within the room. She put on her warmest cloak, which happened to be a black one, and her new black bonnet and gloves, and hurried softly down the stairs. In her haste she had forgotten the "Sontag," which she always wore in very cold weather, and it had not seemed quite decorous to wind her big white "cloud" around the mourning bonnet.

The air struck cold upon her as she closed the front door behind her, and she hid the pansies in the folds of her cloak to keep them warm. "It


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 seems to me colder 'n it did this morning," she said, with a shiver, not noticing that the sunlight was all but gone from the chimneys and tree-tops; "but mother'd ought to have them pansies; her favorite flower, too!" Her teeth chattered as she hurried along, stumbling now and then, but there was the warmth of an eager purpose within her. "I wanted to do somethin' for mother; I did want to do some little thing for mother." The dusk was gathering fast about her, but she knew the way. "I hope they won't miss me before I git back," she whispered, with a guilty look at the darkening sky; "they might git worried." And she pushed on, faster and faster, through side streets and alleys, an increasing eagerness urging her on as she approached her goal.

Harriet's family and Anson's had lots in the new "Woodland Cemetery," but Old Lady Pratt and her husband were lying side by side in the quieter resting-place of their own generation, known as "the old burying-ground."

There was no wind stirring, and as Aunt Betsy hurried on and on, and saw the stars coming out in the clear sky, there was a growing gladness in her heart, and she scarcely noted the deadly chill that was creeping upon her.

The gates of the old burying-ground were never locked, and there was nought to hinder her as she pushed them aside with her benumbed hands and entered in.

The Pratt lot was in a sheltered corner not far

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 from the entrance, and Betsy went to it, without hesitation. There it was, with its row of modest head-stones, and the black break in the snow, which marked the newly made grave. It looked very black indeed in the starlight, and Betsy shuddered with a feeling stronger than the outer cold.

She laid the pansies, wilted with frost, upon the dark mound, and then she sat down on a bench in the shelter of the high board fence to rest. The sky was sparkling with stars, and she looked up at them with a sudden glow of hope and joy.

"Mother's up there," she said within herself, for her cold lips refused their office. "Seems to me as though I could see her eyes a-shinin' down. I wonder if she's pleased to have them pansies?"

A feeling of warmth and well-being stole upon her as she sat on the old bench, gazing no longer at the dark grave, but at the starry heavens.

Yes, it did seem as though her mother's eyes were shining somewhere among those stars, and as she looked longingly toward them there sounded in her poor unhearing ears the sweetest words that had ever reached them: "Betsy, you're a good girl; I don't know what I should do without you."

Over and over, like a sweet refrain, those words sounded, while the sense of warmth and brightness deepened upon her. Then her eyes closed but did not seem to shut out the glory of the heavens. And hearing still those comforting


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 words, her gray head dropped upon her breast, and she fell gently and happily asleep.

After a night of anxious search, they found her there in the early dawn.

"Poor Aunt Betsy!" some one said. "She must have gone crazy."

"That ain't the face of a crazy woman," said Brother Ben, with a choke in his voice. "It's the face of a transfigured saint. God bless her!" And he knew in his loving heart that already the benediction rested upon her.


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HANK you, dear child."

The voice in which these words were spoken was of that soft, uncertain quality in which a hint of querulousness may be detected. The speaker's face was the face of a nervous invalid.

"Thank you, dear child," she said sweetly, and her daughter's cheeks flushed with pleasure. Mary Anne Spencer knew no greater joy than a word of appreciation from those lips could bestow. She left the room with heightened color and elastic step.

"How unselfish Mary Anne is!" said Mrs. Spencer, as the door closed behind her daughter.

The remark fell upon unheeding ears. Mr. James Spencer was far too much engrossed in his evening paper to give a thought to so commonplace a theme as Mary Anne's unselfishness. Every one knew that Mary Anne was unselfish, every one said that she was. There was no more doubt on the subject than upon the color of her hair or of her eyes, and those who praised her were totally unconscious of the patronizing tone which lurked in their commendations.


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 Unselfishness is a virtue which is seldom questioned, but, if carried to excess, it places its owner at a manifest disadvantage. It is a hindrance to personal success, and whoever may have first made the statement, the world surely did not wait for his utterance before discovering that "nothing succeeds like success."

James Spencer, himself a successful man, unacquainted with the first principles of self-abnegation, did not concern himself much with his daughter's character. She was useful to him in many ways, but her personality failed to interest him. He would not have acknowledged even to himself that he found her amiability monotonous. Indeed, Mary Anne's "crying virtue" as her father once called it in a moment of irritation, had never awakened a distinct misgiving in any one's mind, excepting in that of her father's grandmother, Old Lady Pratt.

"Don't talk to me about Mary Anne's unselfishness!" the independent old lady would exclaim. "I've no patience with her."

"But, Grandma!" would be the rejoinder, "don't you think her spirit of self-sacrifice is very beautiful?"

"A fig for her sperrit of self-sacrifice! Before you know it, it'll be all the sperrit she's got left! I can tell you something that's a long sight better than self-sacrifice, and that's a good, wholesome bit of self-assertion! We wa'n't made to lie down for other folks to walk over. What's the


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 good of a backbone, I should like to know, if not so's we can stand up straight and make the most of the chances the Lord gives us!"

This had been the old lady's stand from the very first, and she held her position stoutly to the last. The "unselfish" Mary Anne had always given her greater cause for uneasiness than did Mary Anne's scapegrace brother Tom, who, in his boyhood, was the despair of his other elders.

One day, in her extreme old age, Old Lady Pratt gave still stronger expression to her views than she had hitherto done. For on this occasion she took her daughter Harriet (Mary Anne's grandmother) into her confidence on a point which she had never before touched upon.

"I tell you what't is, Harriet," she said, with her old eyes snapping, and her knitting-needles glinting faster than ever. "I tell you what 't is! I ain't lived ninety years in this world without findin' out that a little spunk is as good for other folks as 't is for yourself. It's my opinion that women like Mary Anne do more mischief than they'd relish bein' called to account for. There's Betsy, now! You don't 'spose I'm any the better for havin' ordered her about for more 'n sixty years runnin'?"

The old lady looked at her patient daughter with a softened, pitiful expression.

"Poor Betsy! She ain't to blame, seein' she's deaf as a post. She's a good girl, and she'd ben smart's anybody if she could only ha' heard a


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 little of what folks was sayin'. But there! There's no need o' cryin' over spilt milk. All I've got to say is, there ain't no sech excuse for Mary Anne, and I declare for 't, I sometimes feel's though I should like to shake her."

Now neither the many who praised, nor yet the one who censured, really had the clue to the girl's character. Old Lady Pratt, with all her shrewdness, supposed, as the rest of the world did, that Mary Anne was inherently and spontaneously unselfish. That when she gave up pleasures that others might enjoy them, when she sacrificed her own inclinations that she might do a service for some one else, it was because of a quality in her nature different from anything in her companions.

The truth was, however, that Mary Anne's unselfishness was a refuge, to which she instinctively had resort, impelled thereto by her two ruling characteristics—self-distrust and a craving for approbation.

Mary Anne was the eldest child of James Spencer, a man of peremptory manners, though of a really yielding disposition. His other children had never found any difficulty in "getting round Father." It was only his eldest daughter who stood in awe of him. This may have been one reason why she was not a favorite with her father. From the time when she was a little child, his commands and admonitions had frightened her. He had a way of coming to the foot


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 of the stairs, when there was too much noise in the nursery, and saying "Hst!" and that sharp, penetrating sound would send cold shivers down her back, even when she was doing her best to keep her little flock in order.

She was very young when she began to regard the little ones as her special charge. Her mother, who had little of what our grandmothers called "constitution," had always had her own hands full with the care of the youngest baby, and she had left the others more and more to Mary Anne's guidance and oversight. Mary Anne appeared to take naturally to the task. 'To all the world she seemed to be a good, plodding girl, quite without desires and aspirations on her own account. The fact that it took brains as well as patience to accomplish what she had always done never seemed to dawn upon those abouther. All her usefulness, and no one denied its magnitude, was attributed to her being "so unselfish," and, proud of the one virtue with which she was credited, Mary Anne clung to her reputation and, unconsciously perhaps, endeavored to augment it. So great was her thirst for praise that a word of thanks, a smile of appreciation, filled her cup of happiness to the brim, and no price was too high to pay for such a reward. It must be recorded, however, that none of Mary Anne's beneficiaries were lavish in their gratitude. Her father, as has been seen, took her good deeds for granted and wasted no words upon them. His wife, on


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 her part, had so early formed the habit of shifting the burden of her cares upon her strong young daughter's shoulders, that now, when there were no more babies to tend, she still looked upon Mary Anne as her chief support, and accepted the girl's services as naturally and unthinkingly as she did those of the old family horse, or of the paid house-maids. It was because her "Thank you, dear child!" was rare that it sent the color into her daughter's cheeks.

Mrs. James Spencer's children—and there were nine of them—were a plump and hearty race, and all of them, excepting Mary Anne, were governed by that healthy spirit of self-seeking to which the world in reality owes so much.

"Mary Anne! Mary Anne!" was the cry from morning till night. "Mary Anne! Come and help me do my sums!" Or: "Mary Anne! I've torn a streak-o'-lightning hole in my trousers!" Or: "Mary Anne! I've made a list of errands for you if you're going to town." Sometimes a careless "Thank you" was tossed her for these services; oftener, perhaps, it was forgotten.

If any one of the children was taken sick in the night Mary Anne was sure to be called up, and young Dr. Winship, who had succeeded to his father's practice, declared that she was a "born nurse." If Miss Plimpton, the dressmaker, was employed by the day it was Mary Anne who settled down, quite as a matter of course, to do seamstress work until the dressmaking dispensa-


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 tion was past. It was Mary Anne who played backgammon with her father of an evening; it was Mary Anne who bathed her mother's head when it ached; who beguiled the younger children to bed with tales of gnomes and fairies, of good little girls and bad little boys; it was "Miss Mary Anne" to whom the servants came in any domestic emergency. She used sometimes to wish that she had been given a gentler, more musical name, since she was to hear it called in so many keys, by so many voices, to so many ends. She had been named for her mother, who, however, had always been called "Nannie." "And she's always been treated 'Nannie, Mary Anne sometimes said to herself, rejoicing in the gentleness with which everybody approached the delicate, dependent woman. Mary Anne loved her mother with a devotion which was maternal in its tenderness and generosity; and next to her mother she loved her troublesome brother, Tom.

Tom, the "scapegrace" of the family, was four years her junior. He was no less bent upon having his own way than were his brothers and sisters. But where they simply demanded, he wheedled. Now wheedling involves many little expressions of affection, with a pinch of flattery thrown in, and now and then a kiss crops out in the process. When Tom told Mary Anne that she was the best sister a fellow ever had he was merely making a statement of fact, which the


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 others, if called upon, would have willingly endorsed, but it so happened that he was the only one who ever thought of putting his opinion into words. And when he had made some such demonstration, Mary Anne's cheeks would flush, and all day long she would gloat over the recollection as a miser gloats over his gold. She was not as unconscious as so good a girl should have been. When she played the piano for a whole evening that a party of boys and girls might dance, she was not above reflecting that they owed their enjoyment to her. When she had stroked her mother's temples until her arm felt like anguished lead, and when she finally saw sleep steal over the worn face, she would glory in the thought that it was she who had brought relief. She would have begrudged the office to any other hand. Happily, Mary Anne was not morbidly conscientious or introspective. Had she been so, she would have detected her own foibles, and all her innocent pleasure would have been spoiled. She was now twenty-six years of age, and she had never yet thought of living a life of her own. There was only one very strong desire which she cherished on her own account, and that one desire was for a musical education. She had been taught piano-playing when she was a little girl, but after she had attained such proficiency as to be able to play for dancing, the lessons had been stopped. She had a strong musical bent, and practising was still her one


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 indulgence. She played Beethoven sonatas and Mendelssohn Songs Without Words, in her own way, which was a much better way than any one had yet discovered. Her mother's mother had recently died, leaving each of her grandchildren a legacy of five hundred dollars, and Mary Anne intended using it for music lessons whenever she should "get time." The money, meanwhile, had been placed in the savings bank, where it might increase itself to this excellent end.

But one day Tom came begging, and before he left her she had loaned him her $500, for a secret purpose which he could not reveal, but which he was "sure she would approve." Tom was in a banker's office, and had doubtless heard of a promising investment, and nothing could have seemed more natural than that he should have the use of her money.

One fine evening in April Mary Anne found herself mistress of the house and of her own time. Her father had taken his wife and two of his daughters to hear Christine Nilsson sing. The two youngest children were in bed, and the rest of the family were scattered in one or another direction. The evening was mild and the house rather warm. Mary Anne opened the parlor windows, lighted the candles in the brackets of the old square piano, and fell to practising the Moonlight Sonata. Untutored as she was, there was nothing ordinary or slipshod in the girl's playing. What she lacked in technique


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 was more than atoned for, to the uncritical ear, by the spirit and expression with which she played. She had practised long and carefully on this sonata, and to-night, for the first time, she was giving rein to her fingers. She played the third movement, with its splendid crescendos and beautiful periods, three times over, each time with gathering impetuosity and passion. It was something to arrest any listener.

So at least thought one passer-by, as he paused at the gate. It was young Dr. Winship, a man of German tastes and traditions, to whom the Moonlight Sonata was an article of faith.

"Who on earth can that be?" he asked himself.

The young man had a great liking and respect for the family in the large, rambling yellow house, with the little white fence around the roof, and the pear-trees in the front yard. He liked them all very much, and he flattered himself that he knew them pretty thoroughly, but he had never discovered any musical genius among them.

Mary Anne was just beginning the movement for the third time, and the opening passages went rolling up and on like great ocean breakers. Dr. Winship listened a few minutes with growing incredulity, and then he opened the gate and walked up the path. Just as the performer, rather breathless and excited, had finished the movement he was ushered into the parlor. There sat his "born nurse," in the soft, transfiguring


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 candle-light, turning a starlit face toward him, and rising with a dazed, uncertain gesture to meet him.

But she was herself in a moment, and came forward, saying deprecatingly:

"Oh Dr. Winship! I am so sorry everybody is out!"

"It didn't sound as though everybody were out a moment ago," he said, grasping her hand very warmly. "I came in to thank you for your music."

"Did you like it?" she cried, with a childlike spontaneous delight which was very winning.

"Doesn't everybody?" he asked.

"I never play to anybody except for dancing."

"I hope you will play for me sometimes. But not to-night." heto-night," he [sic] added, gently. "You have played yourself into a fever."

It was the most delicious thing Mary Anne had experienced in all her life. First the praise and then this solicitude and gentleness.

"Where did you learn to play?" he asked presently, as he sat beside the music-stand looking over the little collection of pieces.

"I never learned. That is just the trouble," she said. "I took lessons till I was twelve years old, and then it got crowded out."

"Crowded out, when you were twelve years old! What a busy child you must have been!"

She laughed and said, "I'm afraid I was only slow."


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 "Are all your people out to-night? I was in luck!—I mean," he corrected himself, "I was in luck that you should not have gone too."

"They have all gone to town to hear Nilsson."

"I wonder how they managed to leave the musician of the family at home." The situation made him unconventional.

"Father could only get four tickets," she answered simply.

Dr. Winship suddenly remembered that he had always associated this girl with household cares, that he had found her on three separate occasions established as night-nurse in a sick-room, that when he had called socially, he had invariably been told that Mary Anne was "playing backgammon with Father" or was "up-stairs with Mother." A feeling of indignation got the better of him.

"Miss Spencer?" he asked, "do you never by any chance have any good times?"

Mary Anne gave her questioner a surprised look. Then she replied with a sort of apologetic dignity:

"I always have a good time."

"Is that so? Then you are the first person I ever knew who got her exact deserts."

Having thus relieved his mind, the visitor discreetly left personalities alone. They fell to—talking of music and of Germany, of foreign people and remote things, and for one reason or another, both these young people became entirely


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 absorbed in conversation, and both felt a pang of regret as the tall clock in the dining-room sent its solemn voice echoing through the house proclaiming the hour of ten.

Dr. Winship sprang promptly to his feet, for he prided himself upon knowing how to go. But before precipitating himself out of the door, as was his wont, he shook his entertainer cordially by the hand, and said, with unmistakable sincerity: "I don't know when I have enjoyed an evening so much. May I bring my violin next time?"

"Next time!" The words sounded like music, the very clang of the closing door resounded like a peean through the house.

As Mary Anne stood in the middle of the room, trying to get her balance, there was a sharp rap on the door which she opened hastily.

"Have you seen the new moon over your left shoulder?" asked the young doctor, with amusing eagerness. "It has rained so much lately I thought you might have missed it."

"No. I haven't seen it. But you ought to look at it over your right shoulder."

"Oh, no! That's a great mistake. The Germans, who are up in mystic lore, taught me better."

She held back doubtfully.

"I've always been so particular about it," she said.

"Well, now. Just trust to me, and try it the


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 other way. See, it will be gone behind the church in a few minutes. There! stand that way and turn your head to the left. There now! See if you don't begin to have good luck as is good luck."

She laughed a delighted little laugh that was pleasant to hear.

"I always supposed you were all science," she cried.

"And I always thought you were all usefulness," he retorted. "It is a great relief to know the truth about you."

"And I'm very glad you're so light-minded."

She had her hand on the door to goin. Her face, turned toward the moonlight, looked wonderfully youthful and sweet. Mary Anne's cares had after all been of a kind to leave the spirit unclouded.

"Did you ever breathe anything so good as this air?" the young man asked, actually lingering on the brink, as he had seen and despised others for doing.

"It's the spring," she answered, simply. He remembered her attitude and the tone of her voice, years after, when they listened together to the same words set to heavenly music.

"Miss Spencer," he cried, impulsively, "I wish the next time anybody is sick, you would let somebody else sit up with them. It would do them good."

She shook her head with much decision.


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 "There isn't anybody else—and, besides, I like it."

"There's the usefulness cropping out again," he cried. "Good-bye."

"And weren't you a trifle professional just now," she called gayly after him.

Then she closed the door behind her, and stood in the brightly lighted 'hall, trying once more to get her bearings.

How foolish she was to be so excited and happy over a little thing. It was probably just like what was happening to other girls all the time. She had had a very pleasant evening, of course, but what of that? And there were the candles on the piano burnt down to their very sockets, and she must go directly and make a cup of tea against her mother's return.

She busied herself with this and other duties, and tried to bring herself to reason, but do what she would, think what she would, she was changed, and the next morning before breakfast she determined not to put off any longer getting herself a spring suit, even if the rest of the family were not already provided for. This, in itself, was enough to prove that a revolution had taken place in her mind. Yet so strongly did her old life-long habits assert themselves as the day wore on, that, but for an opportune catastrophe, she might again have fallen a victim to them.

The second day following her pleasant evening was a New England holiday, the 19th of April.


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 Mr. Spencer did not go to his office in town, and Mary Anne was not surprised to be summoned to him in the library. She went, prepared to render some chance service, or answer some question about household affairs. To her consternation she found Tom there, looking very pale and desperate, standing before his father, whose face was stern and lowering.

"Well, Mary Anne!" was her father's greeting. "Here's a pretty state of things!"

"Why, Father. What's the matter?"

"Matter enough! Tom's been gambling in stocks, and owes a thousand dollars, and there's nobody to blame for it but you."

"Father!" Tom remonstrated.

"Hold your tongue, Tom," cried his father, hotly. "It's exactly as I say. If Mary Anne hadn't been an absolute fool, she would have known better than to lend you money. I don't count that among his debts," James Spencer added, bitterly. "It serves you right to lose it, and I, for one, shall not make it up to you."

"But, Father," Tom began again.

"Hold your tongue, Tom. Do you hear me? Tom's been a fool, too," he went on, turning to his daughter; "but he has at least had the manliness to own up. He's not quite lost to all sense of decency yet. But he's headed straight down hill. He's got a taste for gambling, and if he goes straight to the deuce, I swear there's nobody to blame but you."


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 Mary Anne stood half stunned by the violence of the attack. Could it be she whom her father was saying such things about? She? She who would have given her life for Tom? She who had never had a thought for herself? Who had sacrificed every natural wish and taste to serve her family? Who had relinquished her little treasure because Tom had persuaded her that it would make a man of him to have a taste of enterprise? She was to be Tom's ruin? A hot flush of indignation went over her. For the first time in her life she experienced a great throb of self-assertion. In a voice as peremptory as James Spencer's own she demanded: "Are you talking about me, Father? Do you say that I have ruined Tom?"

"Yes, I do! You have systematically spoiled him all his life; and now"

"I have systematically spoiled you all," cried Mary Anne, with a sudden, uncontrollable energy of rebellion. "Every one of you! From you, Father," looking him unflinchingly in the eye, "down to little Ben and Jimmy. I've spoiled you so that you"

"Highty! tighty! Is this the self-sacrificing Mary Anne, who prides herself"

Again she interrupted him. She was no more afraid of her father now, than she was of the Moonlight Sonata, and flinging herself with the whole force of her nature upon the catastrophe, she cried, "I will never be self-sacrificing


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 again as long as I live! I will never do another thing for anybody else! I am going to be a perfect pig!"

James Spencer stared for a few seconds in speechless astonishment at his daughter, standing before him with flaming cheeks and defiant eyes. Had she lost her mind, or had she become possessed of the devil? At any rate she looked surprisingly handsome, and that at least was as it should be. A sudden revulsion of feeling went over him, and holding out both hands to her, he cried:

"Mary Anne, come here! You're a trump! I'm proud of you!" He held her hands for a moment and gazed up at her from his big easy chair with a look wherein approbation still contended with amazement, and then he said: "See that you stick it out, my girl! see that you stick it out!"

For the moment om's misdemeanors were forgotten, and somehow they never assumed the same gigantic proportions in the family councils again. In his joy at having his daughter's virtues mitigated, James Spencer could afford to be indulgent to the sins of his son.

When, that same evening, a caller was announced, namely, Dr. Charles Winship, Mary Anne, witha queer little laugh, said to her younger sister: "Edith, I think you'd better play backgammon with Father this evening. I want to see Dr. Winship myself."


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 Then James Spencer openly gloried in the situation.

"Well, Edith," he said, with a comical shrug of his broad shoulders, as he settled himself for his game; "Mary Anne's carrying things with a high hand. You and I may as well submit."


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36

MOST Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of gentleness and mercy, I, a miserable and unworthy sinner, fly to thy protection with every sentiment of humility and love; and I implore of thy loving kindness that thou wouldst vouchsafe graciously to be near me, and all who throughout the whole Church are to receive the Body and Blood of thy Son this day, even as thou wert near thy sweetest Son as He hung bleeding on the Cross. Aided by thy gracious help, may we worthily approach this august Sacrament.

APPY and blessed art thou, O Joseph, to whom it was given not only to see and to hear that God Whom many kings desired to see, and saw not, to hear, and heard not; but also to bear Him in thine arms, to embrace Him, to clothe Him, and to guard and defend Him.

V. Pray for us, O blessed Joseph.

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

GOD, vouchsafe, we beseech Thee, that as blessed Joseph was found worthy to handle with his hands, and bear within his arms, Thine only-begotten Son, born of the Virgin Mary, so may we be made fit, by cleanness of heart and innocence of works, worthily to receive the most sacred Body and Blood of Thy Son, now in this

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EOPLE often said of Mr. Richard Spencer and his youngest son, Dick, that they were "well matched." It is to be feared that the comparison was not altogether flattering to either of them, since it was called forth less by the rather inconspicuous virtues which they had in common, than by their more striking characteristics of an irascible temper and considerable stubbornness.

Yet there was something in what wise Old Lady Pratt, Mr. Spencer's grandmother, had said when young Mrs. Spencer confided to her her anxieties early in her son Dick's career.

"Lizzie," Grandma said, "do you recollect our old Topsy, that was always a-layin' in that stuffed cheer when you and Richard used to drop in so unconscious-like of a Saturday evening, and be all struck of a heap to see each other? Betsy, she'd never believe you was a-courtin'. Old maids are most gen'rally kind o' hard to convince. But my spectacles are pretty sharp ones."

To such sallies Lizzie never failed to respond


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 with a becoming blush. She was a woman who did not outgrow her feelings.

"Well," Grandma went on, "Topsy was about as fierce a cat as ever lived. I declare for 't, I do believe the critter'd rather fight than eat any day. But there was one cat he was friends with, and that was Miss Gibbs's Jericho. Jericho he was a master-hand at fightin' too, and it's more 'n likely that them two tabbies had had one good pitched battle to begin with. But whether or no, there 'peared to be a kind o' bond o' union betwixt 'em. They'd sit nose to nose on that board fence sunnin' themselves by the hour. Sometimes they'd blink at each other and wave their tails about kind o' gentle an' innocent. Then agin' they'd go off to sleep jest as confidin' 's a pair of turtle-doves. Now you mark my words, Lizzie; it'll be jest so with Dick and his father. They're too well matched to fight often. They may have it out once or twice before they come to reason, and I don't say 'tain't goin' to be pretty lively for you. But there'll never be any small naggin' and domineerin' betwixt 'em, and when once they're settled down friends, it'll take a good deal to set 'em onto each other."

Old Lady Pratt was right about this as she was about most things, and before she went to her rest she had the satisfaction of seeing her grandson and his young epitome living as comfortably together as Topsy and Jericho in the sun.

As Dick grew up it was really delightful to see


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 what good friends the two were. Mrs. Spencer could forgive her husband for falling into an occasional rage with the other children, because he seldom molested her "fire-brand" Dick; and as for Dick he might "blow out" at her with impunity, so long as he did not rouse the lion which slumbered in the bosom of her chosen lord. She would often watch them as they strolled down the garden path together, thinking the while of Topsy and Jericho and of her early alarms, and she would say to herself with a deep sigh of content, "It has really been a great deliverance."

A sensible woman was Mrs. Richard Spencer, and her husband only hoped that his sons might have his luck when their courting days came round.

The courting days were nearer at hand than Mr. Richard Spencer suspected. Perhaps he had forgotten that he began his own courting at the early age of twenty. Such a lapse of memory could alone account for his not attaching more significance than he did to a little incident which occurred one pleasant June morning when Dick was barely turned twenty-one. The family were assembled at the breakfast-table, grace had been said, and as Mr. Spencer lifted his eyes he beheld an unusual sight. The dining-room windows looked out upon the gravel space in front of the barn. Although it was at some distance from the house, the view was unobstructed, and a top-buggy which had been backed out from the car-


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 riage-house was plainly visible. This was a sight to which Mr. Spencer was well accustomed, and there was nothing unusual in the pailfuls of water which were being energetically flung upon the four wheels of the vehicle. It was on this spot and at this hour that the carriages were frequently washed.

But Mr. Spencer's eyesight was good, and he saw, not only the buggy top glistening in the brilliant morning sunshine, and the figure of his trusted servant vigorously swashing the wheels, but in the shadow of the buggy top an object suspended, which bore a striking resemblance to a woman's bonnet. It was of white straw with bright pink roses upon it, and as it hung from the hook provided for the reins, it was lightly wafted to and fro by a gentle morning breeze. It gave Mr. Spencer rather a singular feeling, for the buggy was Dick's, and he looked often from the unique picture before his eyes to the unconscious face of his son. He was quite determined, however, not to make any allusion to the matter, and was rather taken aback when he found himself saying, as he passed his cup for more coffee, "Did you have a pleasant drive yesterday, Dick?"

"Yes, sir," said Dick, "very pleasant."

"Where did you go?"

"I went round by Darbon Centre. There are lots of wild roses out," he added, with an air of dwelling upon the point of chief interest.

"H'm! Did you go alone?"


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 "No; I took a friend."

Dick's manner as he said this was so needlessly innocent that his father's wise resolution vanished, and before he could stop himself, he had said:

"H'm! He left his bonnet behind him."

Dick followed the direction of his father's eyes, and looked out of the window. He flushed crimson. There was a shout from John and a titter from the girls, and Dick, pushing back his chair, rushed from the table, and seizing his hat, dashed out to the barn. There they could see him berating the indiscreet groom, who vainly tried to conceal his enjoyment of the situation.

Poor Dick! It was no laughing matter to him. He sternly ordered the man to "let that buggy alone and harness Golddust." He backed the horse into the shafts himself, made fast the straps, and in five minutes after his hasty exit, his family beheld him driving out of the yard, the wheels of the buggy still dripping wet, and the bonnet waving like a banner from the top. A more defiant and indignant heart never beat under any flag.

Once fairly out of sight of the dining-room windows, Dick took the bonnet from its unworthy position and laid it reverently upon the seat beside him, first spreading his snowy pocket-handkerchief beneath it. Then he covered it over with the light lap-robe.

He was a curious study at that moment, in the


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 mingled fury and tenderness of his aspect. With one hand he clinched the reins, as though seeking to control a wild beast, as indeed he was, though the wild beast's name was not Golddust; while the other hand rested protectingly on the fragile object beside him. He lifted the cover once or twice and looked at the fanciful combination of straw, ribbons, and muslin flowers. It seemed to his untutored mind a thing of perfect beauty, and its nearness was very soothing to his wounded sensibilities. He reflected that the Mortons were not as early risers as his own family, and not wishing to arrive on his somewhat surprising errand at Julie's house until her people were likely to be dispersed, he turned the obedient Golddust toward the open country. Poor Golddust was much perplexed and hurt by the grim clutch of his master's hand upon the reins. He had a tender mouth and a tender conscience, and he knew he deserved better treatment. But he trotted lightly along the smooth road, and when, after a mile or two, the inconsiderate grip was relaxed, he turned his head a little and laid back one ear in grateful and forgiving recognition of relief.

At first Dick's reflections were very bitter. He felt himself betrayed and wronged in his tenderest feelings. Yet those feelings of tenderness were so much stronger than his indignation about them could be that he gradually gave himself up to them.


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 It had been his first drive with Julie, and after all nothing could rob him of it now. The lovely June weather, the long, lingering twilight, and the young hearts happy in an unexpressed communion, all had been in tune, while Golddust, with his shining sorrel coat, had seemed like a good fairy, graciously condescending to serve them.

It was at this point in Dick's meditations that Golddust felt the reins relaxed.

The bonnets of that day were heavy, oppressive structures, and Julie had felt the weight and irksomeness of hers, So she doffed the awkward thing as they were driving home through the open country, and laid it in the hood of the buggy, where Dick made it fast to the hook. When the bonnet was gone a hundred little sunny curls were released, and the evening zephyrs played among them in a manner that enchanted Dick.

As they drove into the town half an hour later the stars were coming out, and the hush of a summer evening was in the shadowy streets. The two young people were silent and preoccupied, and when they drew up before Mr. Morton's gate, Julie gave a little regretful sigh, at which a sudden throb of courage inspired Dick.

He handed her from the buggy without speaking, but just as she turned to leave him he seized her hand and cried, in a voice more eloquent than the words:


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 "O Julie! I should like to drive with you forever!"

Was it any wonder that they forgot the bonnet? That Julie ran up to her little room, her heart beating so hard that she could hardly breathe? That Dick's strong hand trembled as he drove Golddust home and "put him up"?

In the presence of such memories even the Spencer temper could not long rage, and by the time he reached the spot where they had discovered the wild roses, Dick's mind was sufficiently disengaged to receive a happy suggestion. He would fill the bonnet with roses!

In an instant he was out of the buggy, searching for the fairest buds and blossoms, with a heart as light as though it had never stormed. He smiled gleefully as he laid the flowers in their singular basket. It was "made to hold flowers," he said to himself, thinking, with a gleam of fancy, of the flower-like face he had often seen within it. Yes, the boy was too happy to be angry long.

Dick's courtship ought to have been a prosperous one, for he and Julie had loved one another long before they were conscious of it. Furthermore, she was the very maiden whom his parents would have had him choose; and even worldly circumstance, so prone to frown upon lovers, was all in their favor.

But there was an obstacle upon this flowery path which Dick scorned to evade—an obstacle


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 which he had determined to remove, by brute force, if need be, before he would take another step. The boy was totally dependent upon his father, and he was resolved never to ask Julie to be his wife until he was in a fair way to earn a living.

Mr. Spencer was the rich man of the pretty suburban town where he lived. He had made money in the iron business when that branch of commerce was most flourishing, and had retired from active life before the precipitous decline in the iron interest which had wrecked so many fortunes.

He was now comfortably occupied with the care of various trust properties. He was a bank director and president of the local horse-railway, and he held other offices of dignity and responsibility which were gratifying to his pride.

He was not himself a college-bred man, yet he had a comfortable sense of equality in his intercourse with those of his fellow-townsmen who had enjoyed the advantage of a fleeting familiarity with the dead languages, and he had left his sons free to accept or reject such advantages, as they should prefer.

Ben, the eldest, had graduated with honors, and "gone in" for law; John was established in business in the city, whither he repaired daily in the pursuit of fortune; while Dick, after a year's trial at college, had fallen into an impatience of books, and announced himself ready for practical life.


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 Now despite the shrewdness and capacity which had made a successful man of Mr. Richard Spencer, there was an unaccountable streak of dilatoriness in him. He acquiesced in Dick's decision with secret satisfaction. He had always had a peculiar pride in the boy's resemblance to himself, and he was glad to find that he was no bookworm. Yet he could not seem to rouse himself, as he ought to have done, to find a proper business opening for the lad. For nearly a year Dick had been fretting under the delay, for he was an ambitious young fellow, and had no mind to "fool away his best years," as he expressed it. Now, at last, things had come to a crisis, and spurred on by the hope of Julie's love, he was ready to demand a career at the point of the bayonet.

Armed, then, with all the righteousness of his cause, Dick went to the city, a few days after his memorable drive, and confronted his father in his business office. He found him engaged in the perusal of a documentary-looking paper, from which he only glanced up as his son entered to say:

"Hullo, Dick! What can I do for you?"

"I will wait until you are at leisure, sir," said Dick. "I've come to talk business."

"Oh, ho!" said his father, amused by the importance of the boy's tone. "It's business is it? All right! Business before pleasure," and he folded up an elaborate scheme for the extension of one of the principal railroads in the country at


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 the cost of several millions of dollars, and gravely waited for Dick to proceed. Dick, in his self absorption, quite missed the point of the little joke.

"Father," he said, with much emphasis, "I've come to have a serious talk about my future. I've come to ask you, once for all, to give me a start in life."

Mr. Spencer looked annoyed. "My dear Dick," he said, "this isn't the place to discuss family matters. And besides," he added, rather lamely, "you know very well that I am on the for you. I shall be as pleased as you when anything turns up."

"Things don't turn up of themselves," Dick answered, stubbornly; "and if you don't mean to lend a hand, I intend to look out for myself."

Mr. Spencer felt thoroughly uncomfortable. It was very irritating to have the "young rascal" take such a tone with him. Yet, as a sort of sop to conscience, he determined to be magnanimous, So he said, not too crossly:

"I don't see what you're in such a hurry about, Dick. You've got plenty of time before you. Youcan't force these things. Come now," he added, persuasively, "why can't you make up your mind to go abroad with the Wheelers as they want you too, and see a little of the world before you buckle down to hard work!"

Clearly Mr. Richard Spencer had forgotten about that bonnet.


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 But Dick was not to be bought off, and he answered: "Because I wouldn't give a fig to go abroad. I'm tired to death of shilly-shallying. I say, Father," he added, beseechingly, "there's nothing I wouldn't do. I'd take any kind of a clerkship. I'd sell goods behind acounter. I'd go into a railroad office. Can't you get me a chance at the D. & I. P.?"

"Nonsense, Dick! It's out of the question."

"But why?"

"Why? Good gracious, Dick, can't you see through a ladder? A salary isn't what you're after. You don't need the money. And besides, you can't pick up a salaried place at every street corner."

"I can't. But you could, Father."

This eagerness was a little tiresome, and Mr. Spencer began to look bored. He unrolled the paper which had been subordinated to "business," and seemed to expect his visitor to go. So Dick got up.

"Well, I see you want to get rid of me," he said. There was no answer, and a dangerous look came into the boy's eyes as he added: "I give you fair warning, sir, that as you won't help me, I shall do my best to help myself."

"That's all right, Dick. Go ahead," his father answered, glad to see the last of him on any terms, and as Dick closed the door behind him, not too gently, Mr. Spencer returned to the consideration of the documentary paper. For some


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 reason he found it less interesting than before. Dick was gone, but the eager, frustrated look in the lad's eyes haunted him.

"I only hope the young rascal won't be playing me any trick," he said to himself. "First thing we know, he'll be clearing out altogether, and we shall hear of him digging gold among the roughs in California. Confound these youngsters! Shey all think Rome was built in a day."

Between his disapproving conscience and his fears of some sort of a catastrophe, Mr. Spencer was far from easy in his mind, and he determined to bestir himself in the matter before he was a week older.

But Dick was yet more prompt in action, and before either of them was a week older he had taken measures which were destined to disturb his father's equanimity pretty seriously.

When Dick left his father's office, it was early in the afternoon, and the out-going horse-cars were but sparsely occupied. He stepped upon the rear platform of one, and lighted a cigar for solace and inspiration. He was angry and discouraged. He felt thoroughly defeated. Yet there was a certain satisfaction in having declared open war, and being ready to take the world on its own terms. In the course of his recent boyhood, Dick had scraped acquaintance with most of the employés on this old-established road, and he soon fell into conversation with the conductor. Preoccupied as he was with the great subject of


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 bread-winning, he got his companion to talk of his work and of his pay, and the rich man's son felt honestly envious of the independent possessor of such work and such wages.

"Do you know, Bill, you're a mighty lucky fellow," he said. "I'm such a beggar, I can't get a chance to earn a nickel."

The conductor looked at him in some surprise. Then he said, jocosely: "You might come on the road. I'm going to try and get transferred onto the new Leanton branch. It goes nearer my folks. I reckon I could get you my place." And the honest fellow grinned with pleasure in his own humor.

"By Jove!" Dick cried: "I guess we've struck it this time! If that wouldn't fetch the governor, nothing would."

The old woman with the bandbox who came out of the car just then, and the young woman reading a library book at the farther end of the seat, little guessed that a dark conspiracy was going on before their very eyes. But when Dick swung off the step, he called out: "I'll see you to-morrow, Bill," and walked toward Julie's house with the tread of a conquering hero.

The conspiracy ripened fast; so fast that in less than a fortnight after that momentous conversation on the rear platform Dick emerged from the company's office an accepted candidate for Bill Geddings's place. The superintendent had "liked his looks," had pronounced himself satisfied with


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 Bill's voucher, and had promptly enrolled the singularly familiar name of "Richard Spencer" on the list of conductors.

It was with mixed feelings that the new conductor walked from the office. He had applied for the position in a reckless mood, and was surprised to find himself rather elated with his success. Quite apart from his frankly acknowledged hope of coercing his father, it was really very gratifying to know that an impartial judge seemed to consider him "worth his salt."

On the other hand, he was obliged to own that the immediate consequences of this startling proceeding of his might be disagreeable, and it was not without misgivings that he contemplated breaking the news to his father.

"It will be an all-round botheration for the dear old chap," he said to himself with some compunction; "I hope I can let him down easy."

His plan was to appear before the "dear old chap" after his first day's service, and state his case with as much moderation as he could command. His own position was clear. He proposed to work in the company's service until something better turned up, and he had sufficient confidence in his own often tested obstinacy to know that nothing was likely to shake his determination. Whether the effect on the "dear old chap's" mind would be to hasten or to retard the consummation of his hopes was another question.

Julie, at least, was all encouragement. She


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 considered his new venture a stroke of genius. She longed to see Dick in his brass buttons handling the bell-punch with all the style he was sure to put into anything he did. She secretly believed that he could have turned a hand-organ with distinction and success.

Julie did not confess all this to Dick, but her confidence was very cheering; and when he entered upon his new duties one morning at six o'clock, he felt as though he were wearing her colors.

Now Mr. Richard Spencer was in the habit of driving to town every day in his own buggy; but it so chanced that on this particular morning he patronized the horse-car. That in itself was a coincidence, but it would seem as though some mischievous kobold must have guided the steps of the unsuspecting old gentleman to cause him to board his son's car. However that may be, this strange and untoward thing did happen.

Dick had stated the night before that he should have an early breakfast, as he was going off for the day with another fellow, and his trusting family had enjoyed their morning repast untroubled by any suspicion that that "other fellow" might be a brawny son of Erin employed as driver on the horse-railroad.

Mr. Spencer's conscience meanwhile had been effectually quieted, and his passing fears of a revolt on Dick's part were consequently allayed. Having once seriously resolved to bestir himself,


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 he was not the man to waste time, and he had been, for a week past, in correspondence with one of his friends, a manufacturer, who was in search of a junior partner with a fair capital, and sufficient pluck and perseverance to go through with the necessary apprenticeship in the business. The chance was exactly suited to Dick's capacity, and, reflecting upon the pleasant surprise he had in store for the lad, Mr. Spencer walked to the horse-car with a light step and a light heart. As he reached the corner of the street he was gratified to see a car just at hand, and he stepped upon the platform before it had come to a full stop, with an ease and agility which a younger man, and one of lighter weight, might have envied.

A bank director and railway magnate does not often vouchsafe a glance at a street-car conductor, and even the tremendous noise with which Dick was aware that his heart was thumping among his ribs failed to attract the passenger's attention as he brushed past the conductor and entered the car.

Dick promptly summoned his wits and gave the signal to start; but as he stood looking through the glass door at the silk hat, just visible over the morning paper behind which his father was hidden, he devoutly hoped that he might escape recognition.

The car gradually filled up, and the time arrived for taking the fares. Dick grasped his bell-punch and passed from one to the other of


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 the passengers, collecting fares and manfully snapping the spring upon each ticket. He glanced furtively at that silk hat, and wondered that its wearer did not look up startled by the shrill tone of the bell, which sounded to his own ears like the crack of doom. But no one, not even the pale, nervous-looking women sprinkled along the seats, seemed to receive the slightest shock from the "infernal racket" the thing made. At last Dick arrived in front of the silk hat and the newspaper, and a cowardly wish possessed him to pass them by, since their owner seemed oblivious to the situation. But it is one thing to have cowardly wishes and quite another thing to be a coward, and Dick promptly said, as he was bound to do, "Fares, please."

Mr. Richard Spencer mechanically put his thumb and forefinger into his vest pocket, glancing up as he did so at the conductor with the familiar voice. For a moment the passenger seemed turned to stone, while he gazed into the eyes beneath the conductor's cap, his newspaper slipping from his grasp, his fingers arrested in the act of pulling out a ticket.

Then the blood rushed to his face, and he said sternly, though in an undertone, "Quit your tomfoolery, Dick, and leave the conductor's business alone."

"I can't very well do that, sir, as I'm the conductor," Dick answered, respectfully, while his heart hammered his ribs. His father looked at


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 him, at his cap and his badge, at his bell-punch. Here, then, was the trick he had feared, the defiance he had dreaded. Mr. Richard Spencer was no aristocrat, but this was carrying a joke a little too far.

"Get out of my sight," he growled, between his set teeth. His eyes looked ominous.

"When you've paid your fare, sir."

"I don't propose to pay my fare."

Dick's blood tingled.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said, steadily, "but you'll have to."

Thus far the talk had been low, and not every one could hear what was said. But there was no one in the car who did not perceive that something unusual was going forward.

A man behind him pulled the conductor's coat, and said, in a friendly growl, "Go it easy, young chap; that's the president of the road."

"I know it," Dick said, over his shoulder, in grateful recognition of a kind turn. But he stood like a rock before his contumacious passenger.

Mr. Spencer had put the paper up before his face, but the lines went scalloping across the page, and in his consuming anger he took a grim pleasure in knowing that the object of it stood there defying him. It was fuel to the fire, and when once Mr. Richard Spencer's passion was roused he gave himself over to it with a fierce satisfaction.

Outwardly Dick had kept his self-control. He


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 had a pride in his new calling and a determination to do his duty with propriety and temperateness. But there was a tempest within him which was a match for the passion of the elder man. He spoke very quietly.

"My instructions, sir, are to carry no passenger over this road without the payment of a fare. I hope you will not force me to extreme measures."

At this crisis there was a touch on the conductor's shoulder, and a ticket was thrust before him. "Here, take that," a voice whispered, "and don't rile the old chap any more."

"Thanks," said Dick, as he punched the ticket and dropped it into his pocket. To his ears the bell had a triumphant clang.

The old man had not seen the ticket. "You give it up, do you?" he said, with a sneer, as Dick moved on to the next passenger.

Dick's eyes flashed.

"Your fare has been paid, sir, by one of the other gentlemen."

Then Mr. Spencer, rose, towering in his wrath, and pulled the strap with a vehemence that endangered the stout leather.

"The other gentleman is a meddlesome idiot, and you—you—you are a blundering impostor!" And with this double anathema, the president of the Dunbridge Horse Railway stepped off the car, and stood in the dust of the street, cooling his cheeks, but not the inward fires, in the pleasant breeze that blew about him.


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 Poor Dick! The sight of his father standing there, abandoned and exposed, would have been too much for him, had not the old man's last words—"blundering impostor"—stung him to renewed resentment.

As he turned to continue his duties, a general murmur of conversation arose. He caught snatches which made him miserably uncomfortable.

"What ailed the old crank anyhow?" said one voice.

"I reckon he'd been out on a bat," another chuckled.

"The young feller stood to his guns like a man," declared a third.

At last Dick escaped onto the rear platform, where a shrewd-faced Yankee was leaning against the brake, contemplatively chewing tobacco.

As Dick appeared, he looked up inquiringly, and pointing his thumb over his shoulder, drawled:

"He warn't tipsy naow, was he?"

Dick flared up. "Tipsy! If I was off duty, I'd fight the whole car-load of idiots. There's not one of them that's fit to black that man's boots."

The Yankee gave the tobacco quid a twist with his tongue, and seemed to be making a study of Dick's heated countenance.

"Waal, I snum," he said, drawling more than


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 ever. "You're nigh about as peppery as the old one."

Then, with a slow dawning of intelligence, he added, "I reckon you two have met before."

It had been a disastrous beginning to the day, yet Dick was surprised to find how soon the painful impression wore off. There was an unreality about the whole situation which made it seem like a dream or a bit of fiction. He could not thoroughly believe in his own part in it, and yet there was just a sufficient sense of identity to give zest to the little drama. He found himself in a new attitude toward the great public. The absurd inquiries, which must become so tiresome to an old hand, had for him the charm of novelty. The old ladies, with their unaccountable agitation and their hesitating steps, called out all his chivalry. The toddling children found in him a ready friend and helper, as they vaguely lifted their chubby feet in the general direction of the lower step. When his own acquaintances appeared from time to time, the interest became still more lively. Ladies greeted him with undisguised astonishment, while the men joined him on the platform, and did not hesitate to "pump" him vigorously. Before night the town was all agog on the subject. Every one knew that Dick Spencer was conductor on the horse-railroad, and every one chuckled over the situation, and wondered how the "president" liked it.

By noon Dick's spirits had risen so high that


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 he was once very near getting himself into trouble.

It happened that a stout, pompous woman motioned him to stop the car at a street corner just as he had his hands full of change, and he was a little late in pulling the strap. The driver was also a little slow with the brake, and the portly passenger gazed with kindling indignation at the gradually receding vision of her garden gate. When at last the car had come to a full stop, she arose in her majesty and approached the door. Arrived on the platform she turned to Dick, and said severely:

"Conductor, why didn't you stop the car at my corner?"

This was too much for Dick's discretion. With an air of elaborate apology, he said: "I beg your pardon, madam; I didn't know you had a corner."

Then, as she flashed upon him a malignant look, he added, meekly, "I will be more careful another time."

The good woman's wrath was tempered with perplexity, and by the time Dick had gallantly assisted her from the platform, there was that in her countenance which told him that he was forgiven. The danger was averted for that time, but the incident gave Dick an entirely new feeling of self-distrust, and he resolved to cultivate the virtue of stolidity.

As the day passed, and he became a little


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 accustomed to the amusing masquerade, Dick's mood grew more serious. Recollections of his father's discomfiture would intrude themselves upon him. He could not pass the spot, where he had last seen the old man standing in the dust, without a feeling of strong compunction, and he fairly hated himself when he thought of the rele which had been so unexpectedly forced upon him. He was pondering these things in a rather dismal frame of mind as he stood on the rear platform of his almost empty car, early in the evening of the same day. The exhilaration of novelty was past, and he found himself brought face to face with certain distasteful facts.

He knew his father's temper (and perhaps his own) too well to hope for a speedy reconciliation, and he was obliged to admit that the prospect of an indefinite term of service on the horse-railroad was not altogether pleasing to contemplate. In vain he told himself that it was independence, and that independence was all he had desired. The irrevocableness of the situation—and young people are ever ready with the word "irrevocable"—taught him that what he had taken for independence was nothing but a respectable servitude.

It was still broad daylight. He stood with his back planted against the end of the car, and his hands in his pockets, gazing gloomily at the receding city. The road was deserted; but in the distance he noticed a buggy approaching, as it


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 seemed to him, rather fast. As it got nearer, he could see that the vehicle rocked from side to side. Yes, it was a runaway, and a wild one at that. Dick turned a quick glance up the road. There were no teams in sight, but, a few rods ahead, a railroad crossed the street, and he could see the smoke of an approaching train coming round the curve. The driver had stopped the car without waiting for a signal. Dick had just time to fling his coat off and leap to the ground; and even in the act of doing so he recognized one of his father's horses and saw a broken rein dragging under the animal's feet. He did not dare to look beyond, where the old man sat, erect and rigid, in the swaying buggy, his keen eyes fixed upon that curling smoke, mind and body braced for the shock.

As the maddened creature dashed by, Dick flung himself across his neck, seized the bit with both hands, and jerked the iron curb together with a force that almost broke the jaw. Arrested by the sharp agony, the horse reared wildly, Dick kept his clutch upon the bits, and as he felt himself lifted in the air, he shouted: "Get out—quick—get out!"

The horse came crashing down with one leg over the shafts, and Dick, flung free of the struggling beast, felt a deadly pain in his arm, heard the shrill whistle of the engine as the train thundered over the crossing, and then he felt and heard no more. As his father lifted him in his


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 arms, the bell-punch dangled heavily across the old man's knee, but the conductor's cap lay crushed beneath the feet of the men who had hurried to the spot to disentangle the frightened horse.

After all, a broken arm is no great matter, and Dick had much and various cause for thankfulness. But it was long before Dick's father could think with composure of that short but awful moment.

The next morning, as they sat together in the library, the disabled arm in a sling, the owner of the arm somewhat pale, but very happy, Dick learned of the business opening which had been preparing for him. His father did not tell him how, in his wrath, he had already taken steps toward cancelling the negotiations with his friend the manufacturer. Dick, however, suspected it, and his mother, who had borne the brunt of her husband's "state of mind" on that trying yesterday, sat by, in blissful mood, once more rendering thanks for a great deliverance.

Mr. Spencer was old-fashioned enough to give his son much good counsel on this occasion, to which Dick listened with unbounded faith and respect. His father wound up by saying: "When I went into business, my uncle, William Pratt, gave me one bit of advice which covers the whole ground. He said: 'It's not so much matter what you do, Richard, so you do it devilish well.


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 Then, with a sudden burst of magnanimity, the old man added, "We'll forget that wretched conductoring business as fast as possible; but I will say, Dick, that you did it 'devilish well.

"And nothing 'became him like the leaving it, Mrs. Spencer added, with glistening eyes, as she laid her hand gently on Dick's bandaged arm.

"Ah, Dick, you beggar," said his father rather huskily, and getting up from his chair with the instinct of flight, "that's something we can't talk about."

"Oh, I say," Dick cried, growing very red in the face, "don't be so awful good to a fellow. I ought to have been thrashed."

And all having thus made a clean breast of the matter, these three warm-hearted people began to feel a little shamefaced, and with one accord endeavored to dispel the emotions which their Puritan blood made them shy of acknowledging.

Then Dick told his father and mother about Julie.


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NCLE BOBBY was a poet. That was why he had made a failure of life; that was why his hair had grown gray in an un equal contest with the realities of this prosaic world.

Uncle Bobby was a poet. That too was why his latter days were days of pleasantness and peace. Life, like a wise mother who has disciplined her child, took him gently by the hand and gave him of her best and sweetest. For the best and sweetest is not a matter of circumstance—it is not even success and love. It is being in tune. And Uncle Bobby was in tune like an instrument whose strings have yielded to a master hand. To-day he was sitting in his "yacht," as he had dubbed his tiny row-boat, his oars balanced idly, floating with the tide up the saltwater creek behind Pleasant Point. A stranger might not have guessed that he was apoet. From his gray felt hat slouched comfortably against the sun, down to the huge rubber waders encasing feet and legs, there was nothing æsthetic to be


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 discovered. Corduroy trousers, to be sure, when judiciously cut, and especially if pausing just below the knee, may have a genial air. But the dingy corduroys worn by Uncle Bobby were not of a genial cut, nor did they disappear into the waders with any promise of stopping short of the solid, matter-of-fact instep of their owner. As to the alpaca sack-coat, it may be doubted whether any cut could lend an air of distinction to that highly inappropriate material, while even the picturesque possibilities of a gray flannel shirt were quite lost beneath an ancient black vest, from the pocket of which dangled an old-fashioned fob.

Furthermore, Uncle Bobby's face was of that florid cast which is manifestly unpoetic, and his blue eyes, not over large, were more inclined to lend themselves to fun than to inspiration. There was always a twinkle lurking somewhere in the background, ready to come to the surface, as promptly as the ripple stirs a quiet sheet of water at the faintest whisper of a summer breeze. Uncle Bobby's nose, a prominent feature, was also florid, and its rich tone was finely set off in contrast with the thick gray moustache which was its nearest neighbor. This moustache was military in its character, and of a darker, sterner hue than the benignant white hair, which was soft and fine as silk. On the whole, though nota poetical-looking personage, Uncle Bobby, in spite of his old clothes, might fairly have been called "a fine figure of a man." Tall and erect, though


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 portly, too, he might easily have passed muster as an army officer, while as judge of the supreme court, he would have made a highly creditable appearance. But as a poet? No. Not by the last stretch of imagination could he have been dressed or drilled or dragged into the remotest semblance of a poet. As he sat there, idly drifting up the creek, and looking rather cumbersome in his little boat, which he maintained was "just a fit," he held between his teeth a small brierwood pipe. The pipe had gone out, but it was evidently at home in the situation.

There was another thing about Uncle Bobby. He had never in his life written a line of poetry, nor did he often read any. If he had done so, he would probably have admired the wrong things, things wherein sentiment predominated over imagination, things about old blind organ-grinders or broken-hearted maidens, or possibly the story of some faithful dog, starving to death on his master's grave. He had no taste, for instance, for descriptions of natural scenery with moral reflections thrownin. Especially poems descriptive of the sea failed to interest him. His friends would sometimes enclose in their letters cuttings from the "Poet's Corner," in which the English language was exhausted in the well-meaning effort to conjure up a vision of the sea to the reader's mind. Uncle Bobby politely admitted that the description was somewhat like the ocean, but then, the ocean was not one bit like the descrip-


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 tion; and he would forget the futile verses in a wordless reverie upon that great, changing, musical, living poem spread out before his chamber windows, whispering to his tiny boat, drawing his thoughts away, far beyond the thought of the vast sea itself, out and beyond, where imagination grew dim in horizons that no ship has ever neared. And so it will be seen that Uncle Bobby, in spite of his imperfect equipment, was a poet—was a poet to-day even, as he sat with his pipe between his lips, drifting with the tide up into the heart of the marshes.

A small cat-boat went tacking across his stern. Uncle Bobby left his oars to the care of the patent row-locks, and their blades touched the water, sending up a little shower of jewels on either side.

"AhAh, [sic] there!" cried Uncle Bobby, taking his pipe from his lips.

"Ah, there, Uncle Bobby!"

"Bound for Great Isle?"

"Ay, ay?"

The cat-boat slipped slowly away on a new tack, and Uncle Bobby, much refreshed by the encounter, proceeded to knock out the dead ashes against the boat-side and stow the pipe away for later service. Then he took to his oars and rowed in a leisurely manner up the stream. He looked about from time to time with the quick eye of the sportsman, but the gun at his feet was really there more for the sake of company than for anything else. It was not the time of day for


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 sport. The tide, with its beautiful impartiality, sometimes sides with the birds—too often, Uncle Bobby thought, and he would hardly have admitted that the game might be of a different opinion. Uncle Bobby was a tender-hearted man, but "yellow-leg," and plover, black duck and "old-squaws," were so clearly invented for purposes of sport that he firmly believed that they too were quite in the spirit of it.

The tide had paused, as it does when at the highest, and Uncle Bobby paused too. Again he let his oars rest on the water, while he took off his hat and wiped his brow. His forehead within the line of the hat was white as snow. "Jest like his soul," old Marm Hawkins used to say. "Uncle Bobby's soul's jest as white as a baby's, where't ain't ben roughened up by this wicked world that was allers sot agin him. Ef Uncle Bobby'd allers lived long of us, they never'd ha' ben a mark on him, an' I don' know's they's any marks on him now. When he fust come down to stay at Jenkinses, he used to hev his ups an' downs, same's the rest of us, an' he warn't allers sech good compny's the Lord meant him for. But now! Lord a massy! He's jest like an innicent child, with his kind heart and ludikerous sayins. They ain't nobody I'd ruther smoke a pipe with, than Uncle Bobby!"

And many a pipe the two cronies smoked together by the side of Marm Hawkins's air-tight stove.


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 Uncle Bobby had not always borne that engaging title. In his days of feverish striving he had been known as Robert Pratt, the Visionary. From the time when, hardly more than a baby, he had delighted in his mother's singing of stirring old ballads, from the time when she, a visionary like himself, had talked to him of a wonderful future, he had had great ambitions. The poet that was in him then, as now, saw all the possibilities of happiness and success that life has in its gift, and the impulse onward and upward and outward was very strong. But the world is too prosaic for poets to deal with, and so Robert Pratt failed. It seemed a pity, for he had many talents; too many, perhaps. He played, by instinct it seemed, all the musical instruments he could lay hands on, his gift of mimicry was something wonderful, he was full of mechanical ingenuity, and even in matters of finance he had flashes of insight, which, joined to a practical shrewdness that was lacking, would have been the making of his fortune. But alas! he lost more money than ever he made; his inventions fell just short of the mark; his music never made itself heard in the world.

Yet why should one say alas? Would any degree of success, of wealth, of reputation, have put him in tune as he was to-day,—musing in his boat, looking abroad on the marshes? Would a successful man have found time to sit there rocking with the turning tide, bathing his soul in the


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 sunshine and the beauty of the quiet hour? Would a rich man have felt the pride of ownership in all that exquisite color, in those reaches of marsh and of sea; would a famous man have been left in peace, day after day, to live his own life and think his own thoughts, with no more importunate neighbor than old Marm Hawkins with her quavering voice and hobbling step? Uncle Bobby did not know he was a poet. He did not know that the deep content in which he habitually dwelt was something rare in this restless world. He did not know that the smell of the salt air was more delicious to him than to others, that the country side was fairer, the sea wider, the old lobster-houses and fishing-smacks prettier in his eyes than in the eyes of his neighbors. He often looked wistfully down the vista of years to the distant past, and he fancied it fairer than the present. But then he had the past, too, as a part of the poem of life. Down that dim vista shone one sweet girlish face, one sweet girlish voice echoed low and clear. More than forty years ago that voice had been hushed, that face had been shut away from the sun, yet death could not complete his conquest over gentle Annie Wells so long as her old lover lived.

Uncle Bobby was a bachelor, but he did not feel in the least likeone. What had hein common with those loveless beings who grow old and cranky in the pride of celibacy? He, for his part, had no patience with old bachelors.


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 There was a certain little poem which Uncle Bobby wore always in his pocket. When the paper became thin and yellow he had sewed with his own hands a silk covering for it, and that in its turn was worn and faded. The poem was one which Annie had cut out of a newspaper and given him a little while before she died. These are the words:

A poor little poem enough, but the one poem in the world for Uncle Bobby. Years ago he had set these words to music, and words and music had blended into something so very beautiful to his mind, that he had written them out and had


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 them published. But when his cousin Arabella Spencer sang the song to him in her well-meaning but inadequate treble, he had experienced a sudden horror of what he had done, of the harsh treatment his modest little song would have to bear, and he had withdrawn the edition, and that was the end of his musical career. Only ten copies had been sold, and he hoped they might soon be lost.

The music sometimes haunted him, but to-day it was far from his thoughts. His mood was purely contemplative. Not a single long-drawn breath of the brimming creek escaped him, not a motion of the tall marsh grass, standing shoulder high in the pulsating tide. He watched, with quiet amusement, the elaborate twistings and windings of an eel among the sea-weed, the business-like preoccupation of a wicked old crab in the muddy ooze below, and when a soft-breasted sea-swallow alighted on the stern of the boat, an indescribable look of tenderness came into Uncle Bobby's blue eyes, and he sat motionless until the light-winged visitant had departed. The "yacht" had turned with the tide, and was drifting homeward, guided only by an occasional dip of the right oar or the left.

As she touched the beach Uncle Bobby planted his big waders in the water, and went splashing up the incline, hauling the boat up beyond highwater mark, where he dropped a miniature anchor in the sand. Then he made everything ship


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 shape in the tidy little craft, which was perhaps the best beloved of his cronies. He unscrewed the revolving seat, which he had ingeniously made out of the skeleton top of an old music-stool. "That's so that I can have the game handy if they fly the wrong way," he would explain; adding, confidentially, "Game are so flighty."

In the stern of the "yacht" was a snug little locker, where he stowed away his cartridges and his tobacco cuddy, and where a brandy flask and a box of crackers lay in wait against possible fogs. Here was also a small tin box which was usually well-stocked with checkerberry lozenges; his bonbonnière he called it, with a grand flourish when he offered it to lady passengers. The "yacht" was too small for the accommodation of more than one passenger, but when Uncle Bobby was socially inclined he would organize a little fleet, and with his own boat as flag-ship, would escort a picked party from the boarding-house up the creek; or, if the day was exceptionally calm, they would put boldly out to sea and make for Great Isle, a couple of miles to the northward. No one else could get up such a party at Pleasant Point, for no one else could wheedle the fishermen into cleaning up their boats and letting them out. It was a treat to see Uncle Bobby deal with the cantankerous owner of a jolly little "cat." He would saunter up to the water's edge, just as the man was trying to think of a new "cuss-word"


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 for an ugly wind which twisted the ropes out of his hands as he was trying to make things fast.

"Good-morning, Mr. Kimball," Uncle Bobby would shout at the top of his voice; "the mosquitoes seem to be plaguing you!"

"Mr. Kimball," otherwise known as "Pickerel Pete," would look up with a wintry grin, and shout back, "At it again, Uncle Bobby!" Upon which Uncle Bobby would wade out through the foaming shallows and lend a hand.

"Well-mannered little craft that," he would say, giving a neat twist to a rebellious rope. "I've got a friend who would give his best hat to take her out some morning."

"Prettiest cat-boat on the shore," would be the next observation, as the two, having subjugated the rigging, tramped heavily in their wet boots across the sand. "I say, Mr. Kimball, you're a good judge of the weather. Think this kind of thing's going to last?"

"Last? Bless you, no! It's only a fair-weather breeze. We shall have a mill-pond outside by to-morrow morning. What caper have you got on hand for to-morrow?"

"Oh, nothing but a little picnic, if we can get hold of the boats. Don't s'pose, now, you'd spare yours, Mr. Kimball?"

"Yes you do, Uncle Bobby. You s'pose I'd be jest fool enough to let your fine, stuck-up city friends have her. You're countin' on 't sure's a gun."


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 "Well, I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Kimball. I always thought you were the most accommodating man on the shore. We shall start about eight o'clock. And, I say, Captain," as the fisherman beat a retreat into his own cottage, "don't forget to send along the mosquitonetting. They're pretty thick between this and Great Isle."

But if Uncle Bobby enjoyed an occasional junketing, he liked better still, for the most part, to "gang his ain gait." And he never felt better satisfied with the way his time had been passed, than when he had spent a morning up the creek with his gun for company. To-day he knew that Mrs. Jenkins had been preparing one of her clam-chowders, which, to Uncle Bobby's palate, amply represented soup and fish, solids and sweets. There was a time when Uncle Bobby aspired to champagne and French cookery to his dinner,—before he really knew his own tastes and needs. That was long ago, when he thought he must have Italian opera, though he should never hear again the deep baritone of the surf or the twitter of the sea-swallow; when he fancied he must own richly framed oil paintings, over which no changing lights nor brooding shadows ever swept. He had not heard so much as a concert now for several years, and all his pictures, save one, had been sold. That one was a chromo which he had picked up at auction for a dollar and a half, frame and all. The chromo had done


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 for him a service which, as all are agreed, lies outside the province of art. It had taught him a lesson.

It came about in this wise, long before the Pleasant Point days. Uncle Bobby had been speculating rather wildly. He had an impression that riches were power. He did not know precisely how he should use such power if he had it, but he thought he should like to have a try at it. The child who chases a will-o'-the wispwill-o'-the-wisp [sic] till he is knee-deep in a swamp, does not know what he wants of it. It is bright and it dances away from him. Therefore he covets it. And Uncle Bobby, who was in very comfortable circumstances, who had not a chick nor a child to give his money to, nor any definite purpose for it whatever, had a notion that he wanted to be rich. So he risked everything in a "big venture," and when that failed, he sold his horses and sent his piano and his pictures to auction. He happened in on the day of the sale and was strongly tempted to bid high on his own possessions. Then his eye fell upon the chromo. It represented a man standing on the brink of a stream fishing. He had hooked a huge fellow whose weight was breaking the rod. In his agitation he had upset a basket, out of which poured a stream of little fishes, joyfully wriggling back into the water. His hat had blown off and was floating down stream, his coat was bursting out under the arms, and in his flushed face and staring eyes was all the excite-


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 ment of the gambler who has staked everything on a losing game. Uncle Bobby gazed, fascinated, at the picture, and when it was put up for sale he was the only bidder, and he got it cheap.

This happened in New York, whither he had drifted in his quest after wealth and fame, and in that human wilderness he lived the life of a hermit for many years, years of dull routine, sometimes in the employ of a fickle government, sometimes in no employ at all. Occasionally, when he signed his name, he was reminded of all the prosperous, well-to-do Pratts, who had beencontent to lead reasonable lives in his native town of Dunbridge. After the death of his mother—that gifted and fascinating Emmeline Pratt whose memory was still green in the paths she had trod,—there was no tie strong enough remaining to draw him back to his own people. The most genial of men in prosperity, he felt a shrinking from old associations, now that he had made a failure of the game of life. He could still crack a joke with his landlady or the bootblack; he could still toss a coin from his scanty store to cheer a beggar; but, for his own part, he was a hermit in a wilderness, in that waste of brick walls and smoky air which is so much drearier than nature's wildernesses.

There came a time when Uncle Bobby fell ill, and had to keep his bed. As he lay there, passing in review the twenty cheerless years since he had had anything in particular to live for, he


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 rather wondered that he did not wish to die. His chief diversion in the lonely days of convalescence was the contemplation of the old chromo which hung on his chamber wall. He thought he had learned its lesson pretty well. He had resisted the temptation to speculate with the small sum saved from the wreck of his fortunes, though it scarcely yielded him his board and lodging. In those days of slowly returning health, he took a grim pleasure in looking at the desperate fisherman on the bank. That wretched gambler was clearly losing his foothold on the very ground beneath him, and was slipping down into the stream. He, at least, Robert Pratt, had kept his head above water.

One morning his reflections took another turn. What good sport it used to be to go fishing! How many years it was since he had had any sport at all! And with a rush of memory the old days of his youth came back to him, when he used to go "down East" for a summer holiday. The more he thought about it the more his thoughts clung to the old memories, the more ardently he longed for the old delights.

Ten days from that time Uncle Bobby came, a travel-stained pilgrim, to Pleasant Point—travel-stained from the long and weary journey of life.

Human things had changed a good deal at Pleasant Point. The few straggling fishermen's huts had given place to a collection of tidy green and white cottages, a flourishing boarding-house


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 had sprung up, where sportsmen with their wives and daughters were wont to congregate. The "Old Shanty" up the creek, where young Bob Pratt and his boon companions had many a time gone to camp out, had disappeared to the last shingle.

Robert Pratt, grown old in mind and body since those days, rowed up the creek and landed at the foot of the little bluff where the Old Shanty once stood. He wore his city clothes, and smoked acigar. He looked out across the creek and the tongue of land built up with cottages, and there, over beyond, was his old friend, the ocean.

Yes, human things had changed; but what of that? Robert Pratt had had enough of human things. What he wanted now was something genuine and permanent. And there was the faithful coast-line, strong and unchanged, the ocean, gleaming blue beyond the pine-trees that fringed the beach. He knew their breath was as sweet as of old; he could almost hear the murmuring sea-breeze among their storm-wracked branches. He watched the sea-gulls circling in the sun, the sails standing out white or gray against the horizon. Once more he felt the strong tonic of the salt air with its bountiful renewal. There was an exhilaration in it all which he had not known for years. He laid his hat down on the low-creeping junipers, and let the air sweep his brow. Suddenly the lapping of


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 the tide on the rocks below struck his ear and touched his heart. The tired eyes filled, and for a moment the sunny day was veiled to his sight.

It is not often that such a thing happens to a man of sixty, a man too, not given to self-pity. When it does it may mean many things. To-day it meant that Robert Pratt in his city clothes would smoke no more cigars on the site of the Old Shanty. After that it was Uncle Bobby with his brierwood pipe who lingered among the junipers. He would take his New York Herald up there, and read of the doings of men in the world outside, and that echo of worldly turmoil only deepened the sense of security and peace. The fishermen sailing by, and the boys and girls out on a picnic, got the habit of looking up as they passed that particular bluff, hoping to catch a sight of Uncle Bobby's paper gleaming in the sun.

"Boat ahoy, Uncle Bobby!" the shrill voices would call, and Uncle Bobby would stand up, and wave his New York Herald, which fluttered as gayly in the breeze as though it were not black with the record of sins and follies of thwarted ambitions and cruel successes. And likely as not a jest would drop down among them, a jolly, good-humored jest that would not lose its relish all day long.

Uncle Bobby's jokes were considered wonders of wit. In fact there was nothing like Uncle Bobby's fun unless it was his kindness. He was hand in


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 glove with every Pleasant Pointer, big and little, and welcome as the sun at every cottage door. "There comes Uncle Bobby!" the youngsters would cry, and leave their play to hear him talk. It was just like going nutting in the fall. You never could tell when a great bouncing joke might come popping plump onto your own head. The comparison was suggested to the more imaginative among the children by Uncle Bobby's avowal that the jokes were, half of them, chestnuts. "We like chestnuts," sturdy Billy Jenkins maintained, and all the boys and girls were of the same mind. But Uncle Bobby did himself injustice. He made more new jokes than old ones. Funny notions were constantly coming into his head. Since he had become an out-and-out Pleasant Pointer his humor was so gay, the sunshine had so saturated his being, that the gleams and glints were always going on in his brain.

Uncle Bobby was no "summer boarder" at Pleasant Point. He and the old chromo were fixtures there. He occasionally spent a winter month with his Dunbridge relatives, but though it seemed very pleasant and "folksy" among them, now that he had made his peace with life in general, yet he was always glad to get back to Pleasant Point with its whistling storms and tossing surf. He did not live at Ormsby's, the big boarding-house, but with Sol Jenkins, a prosperous householder who ran the express


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 wagon out over the causeway to the railroad station twice a day. He brought in the mail and any stray passengers who were not otherwise provided for. Sol was an all-round genius of the variety rarely found out of Yankeeland, and Uncle Bobby delighted in him, as he had never delighted in brother or friend before. Sol's droll sayings and dry philosophy were better than all the books, and his ingenious doings as good as a play.

Mrs. Sol Jenkins was a famous cook, and just the kindest woman in the world, or so Uncle Bobby said. It was really surprising how many of the kindest and smartest people in the world Uncle Bobby discovered at Pleasant Point. The side of folks that was turned toward him always blossomed and bloomed as plants do toward the sun.

Now on the day when Uncle Bobby drifted up the creek and back again—the day when the sea-swallow twittered his little lay on the stern of the boat,—there was a new arrival at the boarding-house, a handsome, stately woman attended by a retinue of friends. And by the time Uncle Bobby had made fast the "yacht" on the beach behind the village, and was strolling homeward in the well-founded hope of a clam-chowder, the rumor had gone abroad, that the new arrival was no other than Kate Alton, the great contralto singer, whose fame had reached even Pleasant Point. There was a flutter of excitement through-


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 out the little community, for Miss Alton's good-nature was almost as well known and almost as phenomenal as her voice. Yet Uncle Bobby, who had seen something of prima donnas in his day, hardly thought it likely that she would sing, and after supper he betook himself with his pipe to Marm Hawkins's for a quiet smoke. Uncle Bobby liked to sit out-of-doors in the pleasant August evenings, but then, Marm Hawkins liked his company in her stuffy little "settin room," and without thinking much about the matter, Uncle Bobby found it about as natural to indulge his old neighbor's whims as his own. So there he sat, enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke, discussing the weather and the vagaries of the deep-sea fish, when a messenger came to summon him to Ormsby's—Miss Alton had consented to sing.

"Has she sung anything yet?" asked Uncle Bobby, as his feet crunched the powdered white shells of the road.

"No! I guess not. She seemed to be unfurlin' her main-sail when I come away. It takes them big craft some time to git under weigh."

But as they approached Ormsby's a superb voice came sweeping out into the twilight. Uncle Bobby stopped to listen, while his companion trudged on ahead. The music rose and fell like the very bosom of the deep, and a hot flush burned on Uncle Bobby's cheek.