f course it does," she said gently. "But you must try to forget now,
Red, because of to-morrow. There will be people to-morrow who need you
as much as he did."

"That's just what I'd like to forget," he murmured. "Everything's gone
wrong to-day--it'll go worse to-morrow."

She knew it was small use to try to combat this mood, so unlike his
usual optimism, but frequent enough of occurrence to make her understand
that there is no depression like that of the habitually buoyant, once it
takes firm hold. She left him presently and went to sit by the reading
lamp, looking through current magazines in hope of finding some article
sufficiently attractive to capture his interest, and divert his heavy
thoughts. His eyes rested absently on her as she sat there, a charming,
comradely figure in her simple home dinner attire, with the light on her
dark hair and the exquisite curve of her cheek.

It was a fireside scene of alluring comfort, the two central figures of
such opposite characteristics, yet so congenial. The night outside was
very cold, the wind blowing stormily in great gusts which now and then
howled down the chimney, making the warmth and cheer within all the more
appealing.

Suddenly Ellen, hunting vainly for the page she sought, lifted her head,
to see her husband lift his at the same instant.

"Music?" she questioned. "Where can it come from? Not outside on such a
night as this?"

"Did you hear it, too? I've been thinking it my imagination."

"It must be the wind, but--no, it _is_ music!"

She rose and went to the window, pushing aside draperies and setting her
face to the frosty pane. The next instant she called in a startled way:

"Oh, Red--come here!"

He came slowly, but the moment he caught sight of the figure in the
storm outside his langour vanished.

"Good heavens! The poor beggar! We must have him in."

He ran to the hall and the outer door, and Ellen heard his shout above
the howling of the wind.

"Come in--come in!"

She reached the door into the hall as the slender young figure stumbled
up the steps, a violin clutched tight in fingers purple with cold. She
saw the stiff lips break into a frozen smile as her husband laid his
hand upon the thinly clad shoulder and drew the youth where he could
close the door.

"Why didn't you come to the door and ring, instead of fiddling out there
in the cold!" demanded Burns. "Do you think we're heathen, to shut
anybody out on a night like this?"

The