t a debate with you. I'll say one thing
and then I'm through; I don't intend and nothing shall induce me, to
have a lot of nasty little mice tramping over my pantry shelves."

"How do you know they will?" asked Sarah.

"Because," said Winnie with terrible finality.

Sarah and Shirley were asleep two minutes after their heads touched the
pillow; and the house was in darkness soon after, for they were all
tired from the events of the day.

In her room, though, Rosemary did not find that sleep came immediately.
After lying quietly in bed, staring into the soft darkness, she felt
more wide-awake than ever. She slipped softly to the floor, felt for
and found her pretty white dressing gown and slippers--Rosemary was
very fond of white--which were close at hand and, wrapping herself up
comfortably, pattered over to the open window.

It was a moonlight night, warm and sweet, and Rosemary knelt down with
a little gasp at the loveliness spread before her. She rested her
elbows on the low window sill and leaned forward, drinking in the scent
of new hay and roses and dewy grass. The shrill, insistent chorus of
insects was music, and when the mournful cry of a distant hoot owl came
out of the woods that rose shadowy and dark across the white ribbon of
road, why that was music, too. Country nights are no more absolutely
silent than nights in the town or city, but some enchantment weaves the
noises of the countryside into graceful harmony. The cry of a bird,
the soft stirring of the animals in the barns, the far barking of a
watchful dog--all these Rosemary heard; and the insects filled in the
pauses.

She did not know how long she had been at the window when,
faintly--miles away, she would have said--she heard the notes of a
violin.

"Rosemary!" whispered someone from the doorway. "Are you awake,
darling?"

Mrs. Willis came across the room and knelt beside her daughter.

"Did you hear it, Mother? It couldn't be a violin--yes, it is! But at
this time of night and way out in the country!"

"Listen!" said Mrs. Willis softly.

Rosemary had inherited her passionate love for music from her, and her
delight and wonder were no greater than her mother's as the music came
nearer. Someone was playing Schubert's "Serenade" in the moonlight.

"I see him!" whispered Rosemary. "Look, Mother--an old man!"

Sure enough, as they watched, a halting figure came down the road which
the moonlight had changed to a silver ribbon.